


The Reader and the Talker

by Bloodpaw94



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-06 13:40:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 40,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3136493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloodpaw94/pseuds/Bloodpaw94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura, who's finally done with university and is working at a book store, finds herself in a situation where she has to throw out a customers who devours Vampire books without buying them. She would never anticipate that that customer would mean so much to her. Laura/Carmilla AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The reader and the talker.

Disclaimers: I do not own any of the rights to the characters from Carmilla.  
—————————————————————————————————-

Chapter 1:

Laura unlocked the bookstore and pushed the door open with a huff, making the doorbell cling. It was the third day this week she had to open the shop, even though her boss had told her that she would be getting more afternoons shifts to make it equal for all the employers she really didn’t mind the early morning opening. It was quite cold outside, but as soon as Laura stepped into the bookstore she felt the warmth spread through her body. The smell of books filling her nostrils soothed her and she always felt like she belonged with all these books of love, adventure and fairy tale. She couldn’t be happier that her friend, LaFontaine, had helped her get that interview a couple of months ago when she moved to the city.  
She took a quick look around the shop before she decided that it was time to open the store.

The day passed on quickly, she had sold some few books, helped some customers and mostly walked around rearranging the bookshelf's. 

“And that will be 10.99” Laura said with a smile on her face, the costumer gave a polite smile back, payed, put the book down in their bag then exited the shop.  
Laura had noticed a couple days ago that there was this one woman who seemed to come by every single day, but never buying anything and there she stood again, in the vampire section reading Twilight. The brunette had a look of confusion and irritation on her face as she turned the page. The woman was probably a couple of years older than her, with long raven hair, always wearing black clothes and always stood in the vampire section. It couldn’t go unnoticed, even though her friends might call her unfocused it was not hard to spot the tall raven haired woman, who seemed to have an obsession with vampires. Laura had never understood the trend with vampires, she was more the love/drama kind of book reader. Suddenly she noticed something that struck her irritation. The black clothed woman seemed to have read over half the book. It’s one thing to read one chapter and then from there decide if you want to buy the book or not. But reading the entire book without buying it? That was not okay in her book, this was a book STORE not a library. Laura decided to walk over to the woman and ask if she maybe needed some assistance.

“Hi, can I help you with something?” She asked as politely as she could. 

To her irritation the woman didn’t even look up from the book and before answering a simple “No”

“Well” she said before clearing her throat, hoping to gain some attention from the woman. “Tell me if you need anything.”  
 “Sure” The woman said in a flat tone without raising her eyes from the book.  
Defeated, Laura went back to rearranging the books in a shelf nearby, now being worried that the woman might be stealing the books instead. However, this seemed to not be the case as the woman quickly put the book back down and left the shop.

“Odd…” She thought, but her mind quickly drifted to the other costumers who had just entered the shop.

The next day she saw the woman again, yet again reading Twilight. She let out a sign of irritation, it was such a frustrating situation. Of course she was happy to have an enthusiastic reader coming in every day, but at the same time this was a store and the books had to be sold. It would be as weird as going in a supermarket, eating the food and then leaving without paying. She pondered over the thought of walking up to the woman and tell her off, but she was more focused on her other clients she had at the time and when they had recived the help they needed the woman was already gone. 

The next day, again, the woman stood in the vampire section again. But this time she was holding another book and Laura realised that she had actually finished the last one. That was the last straw. She had to act, this was a business after all.  
She walked up to the woman with determined steps. The woman wasn’t even acknowledging the fact that she was standing right next to her and looking straight at her. Or if she was, she simply didn’t care.

“Excuse me?” Laura said politely.

“Yea?” The woman answered, yet again not looking up from her book. 

“Well, I’ve been noticing that you’ve been here the last couple of days reading our books. And as happy as I am to have a client who seems so passionate about books, you can’t just read the whole book without buying them. We aren’t a library but I could happily point you to the direction of the library.” She said with a smile on her face, she had learned that working in a shop you always have to be polite even thought you want to show them that you are clearly irritated.

“No, I’m good here.” The woman answered casually as she turned the page.

“I don’t think you understand” The blond haired woman answered with a huff “As I said, this ISN’T a library, if you're gonna read it you’ll have to buy it!” The woman finally looked up and Laura was stunned by her beautiful brown eyes. 

“Hey, chillax cupcake. I’m just taking a test ride, just like people do with cars. You’ve got to test it first before you buy it.” She answered with a slight smirk on her lips. 

“No, a test ride is one ride. As in one chapter and not as in ONE book! And wait, what did you just call me?” Laura exclaimed in confusion over the last part.

“Whatever.” The woman says slightly annoyed. She put the book back, left the store and that was that.


	2. Chapter 2

The reader and the talker.

Disclaimers: I do not own any of the rights to the characters from Carmilla.  
—————————————————————————————————-

Chapter 2:

“And then I told her it wasn’t a library and she was like whatever and left, the nerve!” Laura exclaimed to LaFontaine and Perry. It had been two days since the encounter with the woman from the store and Laura was still fuming over how someone could be so rude, especially when she tried to be polite about the whole situation.  
 “Well, at least she’s out of your hair now and the shop is back to normal” Perry stated with a satisfied smile on her face. Laura had to chuckle, Perry was really something else, with the intense cleaning and the “normalness”. She never really understood how LaFontaine and her got on so well together, but seeing that they had been friends since they were five Laura guessed they had been through a lot together. 

They were sitting at their downtown local pub, Oscars, enjoying their Friday evening together. The lights were dimmed, music played in the background and the bar was full of people ordering drink after drink. A typical friday night.  
The sound of shattered glass echoed through the bar and the group quickly turned around towards the bar, only to see that the bartender Kirsch had tried one of his new bartricks infront of a group of girls, only to drop the tequila bottle which caused the girls to laugh like it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. Kirsch quickly started cleaning up and Laura could see that he had a awkward grin on his face as he tried to save the situation. But the girls had already gone back to their table. 

“Is he ever gonna learn that luring girls in by making bartricks and constantly failing wont get him anywhere?” Perry said slightly annoyed. 

“Well, he is trying his best at least. I mean I saw him succeed once… I think” LaFontaine stated before squinting their eyes in uncertainty. 

 

On the other side of the bar, Carmilla and Will were sitting enjoying their drinks before the sound of crashing bottles were heard.

“God that imbecile, I don’t even have to turn around to know that this was caused by one of Krisch “bartender tricks”” Camilla said annoyingly as she finger quoted the last two words. 

“Well, you have to give it to him sis, at least he’s trying. I think he has gotten better.” They both turned around to see the girls leaving the bar laughing at the poor, slightly confused bartender.

“Doesn’t seem like it.” Carmilla said with a sigh. “So, did I tell you about that uptight book girl I met the other day?” 

“No, who’s this? One of your groupies gone mental again after you didn’t call them?” Will said with a smirk on his face. 

“God no, I’d never lay a finger on that girl. I mean sure, I like the innocent from time to time. But innocent, uptight and proper? Shoot me if that ever happens.” Carmilla said with an eye roll.

“Well, who’s this then?” Will said as he took a gulp of his beer.

“Just some girl who works in the book store, The Living, I think it’s called. Anyway, so there I’m standing reading and she comes up and almost forces me to buy the books I’m reading and if I don’t I have to leave the store.”   “Well… I mean she's got a point. It isn’t a library and if I know you correctly, you probably already devoured half the bookstore by then” Will chuckled. 

“Well, you know I don’t roll that way.” She said as she smirked at her brother and took a sip of her red wine. 

“True, I’m telling you though, you'll get in trouble one day and if that happens you know who’s gonna come knocking on our door right?” 

“Yes, Mother will come and probably break down the door and have a one and a half hour long lecture about my life and then I will be grounded, which technically she can’t do anymore seeing that I’m 26, but hey what Mother says goes right?” 

“Exactly and you haven't gotten along lately so maybe you should think about being more, jeez I don’t know sis, careful? You’ve already been arrested once an-”

“Ok, I’m going to stop you right there. That was a huge mistake, we’ve been through this several times. I didn’t go to prison, I’m fine and I have everything under control. I was reading a book in a book store, it wasn’t like I was robbing a bank!” She exclaimed as she put down her wine with force. 

“Yea, but if Mother didn’t come to your rescue-“   “God can you stop being such a mommas boy? Just for one second?!” 

“I’m just saying I care about you and I don’t want anything bad happen to you… again.” 

Carmilla sighed “I know and I swear nothing is going to happen. We both have jobs we love and we’re happy now. Life turned out for the better for both of us. Who could have thought that right?” Carmilla said with a genuine smile as she looked at her younger brother. 

He looked up at her and smiled a sad smile at her. “Yea, you're right.”

“There you go, now stop being a sentimental little wimp and I’ll go get us two more drinks.” Before Will could say anything Carmilla was already off towards the bar. Will chuckled as he shook his head at his older sister.

Carmilla finally made it through the crowd of people by the bar, she might have elbowed some annoying girl in the face, but she needed those drinks. Krisch finally got eye contact with her and immediately went over to her instead of taking care of the customers who had probably been standing there longer than her. It was nice that Will and Krisch were best buds, not that she ever would understand what he saw in this idiot but a happy Will is a happy Carmilla and plus she got head starts in the bar. Win win.

“Hey sexy lady, what can I offer you tonight?” He said with a wink.

“If looks could kill Krisch… if looks could kill.” She said as she gave him a death glare.

“Yea relax Carmilla, but you know I have an appreciation for the ladies.” He said with a shrug.   “Don’t we all” She said as she looked around the bar, hoping to spot a glimpse of a potential girl for the evening. 

“So, one beer and a glas of red wine?”   “You got it.”   “Be right back!” 

Carmilla looked around once more by the bar and she couldn’t spot one interesting girl. Well, maybe tonight she could just enjoy her brothers company like a normal person.  
“Here you go! One beer and one glass wine for my two favourites!” Kirsch said as he handed Carmilla the drinks. 

“Thanks” She turned around only to walk right into a short girl who’s strawberry daiquiri came falling out of her hand, right onto Carmilla’s shirt and leather pants. Which she had just washed. Saying that she was pissed was an understatement. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you and it’s so crowded and I didn’t-” The short girl stopped mid sentence when she saw who she had just run into.


	3. Chapter 3

The reader and the talker.

Disclaimers: I do not own any of the rights to the characters from Carmilla.  
—————————————————————————————————-

Chapter 3:

“Oh my god! It’s you, the girl who kept reading the vampire books” Laura said in disbelief as she pointed at Carmilla with her mouth wide open in shock.

“And you’re the rude store clerk.” Carmilla said as she raised her perfect eyebrow at the shorter girl.

“Well, I didn’t find myself rude actually and- whatever!” She shock her head quickly before continuing. “Im genuinely sorry about your shirt and… leather pants, can I get you some napkins or something?”   “No, you’ve done enough” Carmilla told her in a stern tone before walking past the shorter blond.

“Why are you so rude all the time?!” Laura uttered in frustration, her knuckles going white from fisting her hands together. “I’m just trying to be nice! At least let me buy you another beer, I made you spill half of it!” Carmilla turned around and looked her right in the eyes. Laura suddenly felt intimidated by the taller girl who’s dark orbs glared right into hers. 

“Fine, I do need more beer.” Carmilla agreed.

“See, at least we can agree on something!” Laura said enthusiastically with a grin on her face, which was answered by a growl from Carmillas part. “Baby steps…” Laura added with a nervous laugh.

They finally made it to the bar, however both Kirsch and the other bartender were busy helping other customers. 

“So… it’s a nice bar.” Laura said after a while of awkward silence.

“Yup.” Carmilla answered uninterestedly without looking at the talkative blond, too busy wiping the drink from her clothes with some napkins she found by the bar.   “Have you been going here a lot?”   “Do you always talk this much?” Carmilla asked in irritation. Laura eyes went wide in shock, who was this girl and why was she so rude all the fudging time?! “Fine, I’ll be quite.”   “Finally.” Carmilla said with a sigh.   Once again the pair was filled with an awkward silence, or rather Laura found it awkward. She wasn’t used to not talking. She always talked, always spoke her mind and never had anyone seemed to be annoyed by that. Or if they were they certainly didn’t tell it to her face. The blond started to sip from her drink in silence, hoping that one of the bartenders would attend them soon. The raven haired girl on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying the newly found quietness between the two and let her elbows rest on the bar while she looked around aimlessly. 

“Hey sexy la- I mean Carmilla. EY, little nerd! I mean Laura, sorry I’ll never get used to that.” Kirsch said with a big grin on his face.

“You know him?!” They both asked simultaneously as they looked at each other with shock and confusion.

Kirsch on the other hand, didn’t seem to capture the girls confusion and proceeded with his job. “So what will it be little nerd?”

“A beer please” Laura answered with a polite nod.

“Coming right up!”

Laura could feel the taller girl’s eyes on her, boring into her with wonder. But Laura, being the stubborn girl as she was, would not be the first to ask how she knew Kirsch even though she was intrigued. The woman next to her had been rude too many times and latest asked her to basically “shut up”, no way she was spilling the beans.

“Well, while we wait I might as well ask. How do you know Kirsch?” Carmilla said and for the first time since Laura had met the raven haired girl, she actually sounded interested. 

“Didn’t you just tell me to “not talk so much?”.” Laura finger quoted in irritation and to her surprise the taller girl chuckled.

“Well, yes that is correct. But it seems like we finally have something in common so might as well ask while we are both waiting.” Carmilla answered simply with a shrug of her shoulders. 

Laura squinted her eyes at Carmilla, wondering if she was genuinely interested or it was yet one of her games. But the mysterious girl next to her seemed intrigued and Laura wasn’t one to pass a conversation. “Ergh fine!” She huffed, the taller girl smirked in victory. “We met in college actually, he was in my Lit class and being the muscles with no brain guy as he is, he was struggling to keep up. So, I offered to help him in exchange of me being invited to their frat parties.” 

“A girl who knows how to negotiate, I like that.” Carmilla said with a smirk on her lips before adding “It’s such a small world we live in, we always tend to believe it’s such a huge planet with so many possibilities and yet, here we are.” She took a long glance at her red wine before taking a sip.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, I’m assuming you went to Silas University. That’s were my brother went and that how I know Kirsch.” 

“Here you go ladies, one beer!” Kirsch interrupted the two women. Laura quickly grabbed some cash and handed it to the bartender and he was off. 

“Wait, you're brother went to Silas University? What’s his name?” Laura asked hurriedly, not wanting the conversation to end just yet. 

“Will” Carmilla stated simply. She had been ready to leave right after receiving the beer, but there was something holding her back, the bubbly girl, aside from her awkwardness, was actually quite interesting. She quickly shoved that thought out of her head, it must be the wine Carmilla thought after a moment. 

“Oh, I defiantly know of him but we never talked you know? He was a Zeta, I on the other hand… well I was “The little nerd”.” Laura chuckled nervously as she brushed her hair out of her face. 

“Right” Carmilla replied with a small smile on her lips. She looked closely into Laura’s eyes, something about them pulled her in, maybe it was the colour. Deep brown green eyes wasn’t something you ran into everyday and Carmilla always believed that the eyes was the opening to ones soul. Laura on the other hand was having a small freak out. Why is she looking at me like that, do I have something on my face? What’s going on.  
But she couldn’t help but look deep into the mysterious girls chocolate eyes. 

Laura quickly and awkwardly broke the eye-contact, the tension getting too big for her. Carmilla quickly looked anywhere but at the smaller girl and cleared her throat. 

“I.. I should get back to my table, but it was nice talking to you! See you aren’t as rude as you make yourself to be! Baby steps!” Laura said enthusiastically as she swung her arm up, making Carmilla chuckle at the younger girl.

“Yea, whatever. Bye creampuff.” She said and walked by her with both drinks in her hands. 

“Creampuff?” Laura repeated in confusion but realised that the mysterious girl was already gone. 

The blond walked back to her table and was greeted by her friends who grinned widely at seeing her return.  
 “Where have you been? You’ve been gone for an awfully long time Laura.” Perry stated as she looked at her worriedly. 

“I accidentally ran into someone and bumped my drink into them, so being the nice lady I am I offered them a new beer, seeing that I accidentally made them spill almost all of it.” She replied with an eye roll at her own unsmoothness. 

“Always the clumsy one” LaFontaine said with a chuckle before taking a sip of their beer and continuing their conversation with Perry. However, Laura was up in the clouds, wondering who this mysterious girl was. One second you could actually have a normal conversation with her and the next she was the rudest, most annoying person on the planet. Laura was gifted with social skills, maybe not on the talking part because to be fair she was the queen of awkward. However, she always seemed to be able to figure people out. But not her. 

 

The evening was over before it began and it was time to head home, the bar was emptying fast and people where stumbling out one after the other, clearly intoxicated by the amount of alcohol they had consumed earlier during the night. 

“I’m just gonna go to the bathroom real quick before we leave.” Laura said as LaFontaine and Perry were putting on their jackets.

“Okay, see you outside!” Perry said with a cat like grin on her face as she turned around and started wobbling out of the bar. She clearly hadn’t mastered handling her alcohol yet, which was quite funny seeing the fact that sober, she was even more of a control freak than Laura.

Laura started walking to the bathroom but before she could get anywhere the felt a hand grab her arm.

“Hey, are you alright? You’ve seemed kinda off the whole night.” LaFontaine looked at her worriedly with their piercing blue eyes.

“Yea, I’m fine. I’m just a bit tired that’s all.” Laura answered with a warm smile.

“Okay, good. You got me worried there for a second. Not often you’re so quite.” Theu replied with a chuckle. “Anyway I better head out and get Perry before she gets lost or Darwin knows what else!”

“Good luck, I’ll be right back!” And she hurried off.

As she turned the corner to the bathroom she bumped into someone who was walking out.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to-!” Laura quickly apologised before realising who it was she had bumped into.

“Well Cupcake, two times in one night. Might it be faith?” Carmilla answered with a smirk.

“Oh, hi! I’m sorry, even for me two times in one night? Thats a new record.” She answered as a blush crept up on her cheeks. The mysterious girl smirked at her even more, the little blond was more entertaining than she had originally thought. 

After a short pause, Laura tried saving the awkward situation she’s been put in. 

“So, did you have a good night?” 

“Well, the night is only beginning. But yea, it was alright.” Carmilla answered as she rose one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “What about yours?”

“It was nice, a lot of talking, drinking and catching up.” Laura answered hurriedly, feeling her cheeks burning from the intense stare the older girl was giving her.

“I bet” She couldn’t help but chuckle, the girl in front of her was just too adorable. “What did you say your name was again?” She questioned as she tilted her head slightly to the side.

“I didn’t say it, not because I didn’t want to but because you didn’t ask or it didn’t come up… I’m Laura.” It felt like all the air from her lungs had disappeared and suddenly everything she said had to come out as quickly as possible.

The taller girl smirked at her again and Laura could feel she was getting redder and redder by the second. 

“I’m Carmilla.”

“That’s a nice name.” Laura said as she looked down at her feet, not bearing to look into the gorgeous eyes of the mysterious girl.

“Thanks.” Carmilla said as she held back a chuckle, the poor girl had suffered enough.

“Well, I got to go to the ladies. Take care!” And she hurried off, mentally face palming at how awkward she had acted. 

Carmilla stood there for a couple of seconds holding back a smile before she shook her head, frowned and left.

 

After her visit she went to wash her hands and to her surprise she found a forgotten iPhone by the sink. She looked around, checking to see that she was the only one in the woman stalls before she clicked the home button. Only to see that the background picture was a picture of Carmilla and Will. “She must have forgotten it just before we ran into each other” She thought. She put the phone in her pocket and headed out.

The bar was completely empty, except from Kirsch standing behind the bar cleaning up all the spills from the evenings customers. He looked up and saw a confused Laura standing completely alone in the bar.

“Hey little nerd, closing time, you got to go!” He said sternly. He might be a goof ball but he took his job very seriously. 

“Yea, I’m sorry. I was just heading out, have you seen Carmilla?” She asked.

“Yea, she just left with Will five minutes ago. Why?” He asked.

“Oh never mind then.” Laura answered as she headed out.   Outside, LaFontaine stood holding a very drunk Perry who couldn’t stop laughing. At what, Laura had no idea.

“Hey guys, I found a phone at the ladies, any ideas what I should do with it?” She asked, but her question was mainly directed to LaFontaine, seeing that Perry was too drunk to respond. 

“Well, you could probably track her home wifi, check her IP address and figure out here she lives and-“ They felt a glare from Perry, the redhead clearly wasn’t laughing anymore. “Oooor, you can just call a random number tomorrow and tell them to come by the shop or something.” Perry’s glare went back to a big grin of satisfaction. 

“Sounds good.”

 

The next day Carmilla was suffering from a massive hangover and if that wasn’t enough torture, she couldn’t find her phone. She dragged herself out of her room and entered the living room where Will was sitting playing Candy Crush on his phone. 

Feeling the presence of someone else in the room he finally looked up from his phone and was greeted by a very hungover Carmilla.   “Wow, you look great today sis.” He said sarcastically. “The after party really got to you last night huh?”  
Carmilla who usually stood tall with confidence, now stood hunched over with a pair of slacks and a oversized sweatshirt, her hair which usually was on point, now stood out like a birds nest and her usual perfect eyeliner was now smudged out which made her look like a sad panda.

“Oh be quite. Have you seen my phone?” She asked with a horsed voice.

“Sorry Kitty, haven’t seen it since last night.” He shook his head and went back to his phone.

“Dammit. I must have forgotten it at the bar” She muttered.

“I’ll text Kirsch, he’s probably found it or else you’ll just have to get a new phone. No biggie.” He said with a shrug of his shoulders, still not looking at his older sister. “One sec, I’m getting a phone call, hey it’s from your phone!” He exclaimed before answering.

“Hello? Yea, she’s here. It’s for you” He said as he handed her the phone.

“Well, obviously.” She answered annoyed as she walked over and grabbed the phone out of his hand.

She cleared her throat before answering. “Hello?” 

“Hi Carmilla, it’s Laura.” Laura said with a cheery voice. There was silence on the other line and Laura cleared her throat before continuing. “The girl from last night… the rude book store girl?” 

“No, I remember” Carmilla answered impatiently. She was too hungover to talk to this bubbly girl so early in the morning, it was only one in the afternoon after all.

“Well, I found your phone last night and I thought you wanted it back…” Her tone had changed from bubbly to uncertain in seconds.

“Why didn’t you just give it to Kirsch?” Carmilla answered confused and slightly annoyed.

“I.. I didn’t think of that. Too many Strawberry daiquiris I guess?” She answered with a nervous laugh. 

“Well, where should we meet? I kinda need it for work and stuff.” She said shortly. How could she be so bubbly, didn’t this girl know what a hangover was?!

“Yes of course! What about you come by the book store on monday, maybe around lunch? Or do you need it sooner?” 

“Nah, I’ll be good till monday. See you then Sundance.”

“Yea see yo-“ And before she could finish the line went dead. Laura sat in bewilderment for a couple of seconds before realising that she got cut off. “That ungrateful bi-b- BAD PERSON!” Laura half screamed in annoyance.


	4. Chapter 4

The reader and the talker.

Disclaimers: I do not own any of the rights to the characters from Carmilla.  
—————————————————————————————————-

Chapter 4:

It was well over lunch time and yet no sign of Carmilla. Didn’t she need her phone? She clearly needed it for work like she had told Laura a couple of days ago, yet she hasn’t showed and it was soon closing time. Laura shook her head and let out a long sigh. The store had been almost empty the whole day and with barely no costumers and everything tided up she had nothing else to do but to wait for the mysterious girl. It was driving her to insanity.

It was closing time and Laura looked once more at the door. Yet, no sign of Carmilla. She let out a sigh and decided that it was time to close down and she wouldn’t hold the doors open just because some stupid woman was late.  Just as she had gone and locked the door a pling was heard from behind the counter. She went back and was expecting a text from LaFonatine about their plans for tonight, however she was shocked to see that it was actually Carmilla’s phone that had buzzed. Laura stood there a moment contemplating if she should read the text or not. She had kept Carmilla’s phone charged, seeing that she needed it for work and it wouldn’t be kind to give the girl a dead phone back. However, this was the first sign of communication that had spurted out of her phone. She took a deep breath before clicking the home button. There, words glowing on screen, was a text from Will. It was pretty short, so she didn’t even have to open the phone to see the rest of the text.  “Hi Laura! Carmilla had a meeting she needed to take care of. She will be there soon.”

Laura frowned for a second. Was she supposed to wait, more than she already had, for Carmilla to arrive? But she had plans! Laura contemplated for a couple of seconds, either wait and get this over with. Or text Will saying that, yes she had plans and Carmilla could come back another day. But there was something holding her back. Was it that she wanted to meet the raven haired girl again or was she just being a decent human and realising that this was in fact Carmillas work phone and she probably needed it. With an annoyed huff she took up her phone from her pocked and dialled LaFontaines number, telling they that she would be late for Perry’s cheese and wine evening. 

Laura jerked from the harsh knock on the locked door. Finally! She thought as she briskly walked over to the door and unlocking it, only to have a drenched Carmilla run in, muttering something about hating the rain. 

“Darn weather, it says that it’s going to be sunny and look what happens! A freaking monsoon rain comes by” Carmilla muttered as she took of her leather jacket and tried to shake it dry. Laura just stood there looking at her, she remembered that she was pissed for waiting 45 minutes for the girl in front of her. But with her hair messy from the wind she just couldn’t help but get butterflies in her stomach. But Laura quickly remembered that she should in fact be mad, she had waited ALL day for this girl and she doesn’t even say hi. She just ran in thinking she owns the place like she always does.

“Where have you been?!” Laura said irritated. Carmilla stopped shaking her jacket and looked at Laura with irritation in her brown eyes. Who was she to question her where she had been?!

“Eum, excuse me? Some people actually have a business to run.” She said with irritation towards the shorter girl.

“That is very understandable, but I’ve been waiting all day here!” She exclaimed as she crossed her arms.

“Well, I sent an email to Will asking him to send you a text. Didn’t you get it?” Carmilla asked while gliding her long fingers through her hair. 

“Yes, I did get the text but I didn’t think it was going to take this long! I had plans, and I still do but now I’ll be super late!” Carmilla eyes shifted to the floor for a couple of seconds. Laura squinted her eyes for a bit, was the taller girl actually looking guilty. But as soon the brown eyes looked up at her green ones, that feeling was lost. 

“Well, you could have texted him back saying that I could have come back tomorrow instead if that was such a big problem for you Sundance.”   “You are being extremely unfair you know that right? Not only did I find your phone, I kept it charged for you so that when you got it back you could start using it directly. I actually took in mind that it was for work and I figured you would have several missed phone calls that would be needed taken care of. Yet, here you are, being annoyed at me for no apparent reason!” Laura practically yelled out the last part. The girl in front of her was so infuriating at times. Carmilla’s eyes widened. She wasn’t used to being talked back to, except from her mother. When she made herself clear, she made sure everyone knew that she meant it. But here in front of her stood this short annoying girl, putting her foot down and Carmilla wasn’t used to that. At all. 

Carmilla let out a sigh before answering the blond girl. “Okay cupcake, if you’re so annoyed at me for having a life I’ll just take you out for coffee or something. I don’t know… “make it up to you” how does that sound?” Carmilla asked as she put her jacket on. 

“That… that actually sounds pretty good” Laura answered slightly shocked out how nice Carmilla was being, but at the same time shocked at how bitchy she could sound while being nice. It was quite different. But at the same time Laura couldn’t remember ever meeting someone like Carmilla. “Wait…are you going to be late again and make me sit by myself at the cafe looking like a total idiot?”

“Karnsteins might be assholes, but we have honour. So, no. I won’t be late.” Carmilla reassured as she put her hand out. “Now while that’s settled, can I have my phone back?” She said as she raised an eyebrow at the bookkeeper.   Laura shook her head quickly and blushed slightly. “Ye-yes of course, here you go!” She said as she handed her her phone. 

“Give me your phone.” Carmilla demanded.

“What…?” Laura answered uncertain. Was she going to rob her now?   “I’m not going to rob you if thats what you thought. I need your phone so I can write down my number.” She answered simply.

“Oh yes of course!” Laura answered hurriedly, blushing slightly at how Carmilla had read her mind. Laura handed Carmilla her phone and she quickly wrote down her number before giving the phone back to the shorter girl.

“There you go, text me later.” And with that Carmilla had turned her heel and was out in the rain again. Laura stood there confused for a couple of seconds. Was she seriously going to go out and take a coffee with the person who she could barely stand. Did she just get her number? What was going on? 

 

Laura knocked on the wooden door and waited impertinently for one of her friends to open for her. One of her pet peeves was being late. She hated it but today she actually had a legitimate excuse for her tardiness. The door opened and to her surprise it wasn’t Perry or LaFontaine who had opened it. In front of her stood a extremely tall girl with long red curls hanging loosely down her beautiful face. Laura felt confused for a second, wondering if she had accidentally wrung the wrong door. But it couldn’t be, this was Perry’s apartment, right?    
“You must be Laura!” The tall girl said with a bubbly smile on her face as she extended her hand. “I’m Danny, I’ve heard so many great things about you!” Laura stood frozen for a couple of seconds before grabbing hold of Danny’s hand and shaking it. 

“Hi, wow… yes I’m Laura” She answered with a small laugh. “You’re… extremely tall.” She said bluntly. The taller girl laughed a bit uncomfortable and scratched her neck. 

“Yea, I get that a lot.” She answered as she looked at the floor.   “Oh, I’m sorry if I offended you! I was just so shocked! I thought Perry was going to open as always but then when you stood there, well, I thought I was at the wrong apartment!” Laura admitted with a small laugh.

“No harm done, come in!” Danny stepped to the side, allowing Laura to walk past her and into the spotless apartment.  
Classic jazz music was playing in the background and you could hear LaFontaine laughing in the dining room. The table was set with beautiful candles, plates of cheese with crackers and glasses of wine were already set up for them. 

“Ah, Laura! What a pleasure that you’ve arrived! I see that you’ve met Danny!” Perry said with a huge smile on her face. “Do you want me to pour you some wine dear?”   “That would be great” Laura answered as she sat down next to LaFontaine. “I’m sorry I was late, I had to wait for Carmilla, she didn’t show up and yea.” She trailed off.

“I’m aware, LaFonatine told me all about it. So, did she show up?” Perry questioned as she handed Laura her glass. 

“Well, she was being rude for no apparent reason and I-“    “Wait, she was being rude because you gave her her phone back? After she was late? ” Danny questioned with a raised eyebrow. “What’s her problem? Oh, and Perry informed me about the situation.” 

“That’s exactly what I thought!” Laura exclaimed. “I mean, I had charged her phone and everything! Yet, she was being rude and I just don’t get it. Anyway, she wanted to make it up to me so she’s gonna take me out for coffee apparently.” Laura finished. The girls looked at her with a frown. 

“Do you really want to go and take a coffee with her though? I mean I thought she was annoying and rude.” LaFontaine said as they took another bite of their cracker with cheese. 

“Yea, I mean she hasn’t exactly proven to be a good person.” Perry joined in.

“I don’t know her but from what I’ve heard she isn’t exactly the kindest person on the planet.” Danny said with a shrug of her shoulders. Laura looked at her two friends and Danny and they were right. She wasn’t nice and she kept annoying her. So why would she go take a coffee with her.

“Yea, I guess you guys are right. But she can be kind sometimes…”

“Sometimes isn’t enough though. Either your kind or you aren’t. End of story. Sure, everyone has their bad days but she’s proven again and again to be an ass to you for no apparent reason.” LaFontaine said with a mouthful of crackers, which earned they a disappointed look from Perry. LaFontaine smiled an awkward smile at Perry before swallowing it whole and clearing her throat.   “But you do as you want man. I’ll be here to listen to how horrible she was towards you if you go on that date!” The shorthaired redhead continued.

“It’s not a date!” Laura yelled, which caused a tense silence between the girls. “I’m sorry, but no. I have no interest in going on a date with her.” She added more calmly. 

“Alright then” The hostess said. “Well, I have told you how I met Danny?”   
And the evening continued with all four girls laughing at old memories. By the end of the evening they were all a bit tipsy and Perry was starting to clean up the table. 

“Well, it was great coming over! Next month, same time right?” Laura smiled at Perry who was starting to wash the dishes. 

“Yes of course dear, you know I love my routines on point. Next time, try not to be late.” She said the last part a bit sternly. 

“I promise!” Laura went over to bid LaFontiane goodbye and when she was coming over to hug Danny goodbye, Danny stopped her. “I’m actually also leaving, maybe we could walk together?” The tall girl asked timidly. 

“Yea sure, that’d be great!” The shorter girl smiled at the redhead. 

 The rain had subsided and the streets were quite as Laura and Danny started walking. Laura looked up at Danny as they walked, she was a girl who walked with confidence. There was something about her, she had only known her for a couple of hours and Laura was already looking up at her, inspirationally speaking that is. Danny put both her hands on the back of her neck as she let out a sigh.   “What is it?” Laura wondered. 

“Well, I’m just really happy I met Perry and got to meet the rest of you guys. Haven’t had real friends for a while so it feels good.” Laura smiled and nodded. Real friends wasn’t something she was used to. Being bullied most of her school years had put a number on her. Books had basically become her best friends, hence why she was working at the bookstore before she could find a real journalism job.

“You’re right. Real friends are hard to come by, but I promise you that those people are seriously awesome.” There was a comfortable silence after that. But after a while of aimless walking Laura finally realised that she didn’t even know where Danny lived, maybe she wasn’t walking the right way.

“Hey, are you walking in the right direction?” Laura asked as she looked at Danny.

Danny put her hands in her pockets. “Nah, I actually live on the whole other part of the city. But I thought I could walk you home.” She answered with a shoulder shrug. “Beside, it’s always nice with company.” She left out a little laugh which caused her breath to fog by the cold.

“You really don’t need to!” Laura stopped walking and turned to Danny, which made her stop in her tracks. “It’s really cold and then you’ll have to walk double as far as you originally needed and-and it just doesn’t seem fair!” She said as she threw her hands out. 

“Well, I’m just doing it for your company. I like you Laur, you’re awesome!” Laura blushed lightly and looked down on the ground. 

“Thanks, you’re… you’re quite awesome too!” She said with a bubbly smile which made Danny laugh.   “Come on let’s get you home before we freeze our asses off!” Laura nodded in agreement and they continued to walk down the cold and deserted street. 

They finally arrived at the apartment and Laura started searching for her keys. When she finally found them she didn’t really know how to say bye to Danny. She hadn’t know her that long, would a hug be okay? Maybe a handshake? A wave?

“Well, it was great meeting you Laur, I hope I see more of you in the future.” Danny said with a smile as she looked down on the short girl. 

“Yea, you too!” Laura smiled back at the giant that was Danny. Danny suddenly pulled her in for a hug. But it didn’t really feel like just any normal hug, it felt more… intimate for some reason. Laura was quite taken aback by the sudden affection that Danny was showing.  
Danny let her go and smiled at her again before turning her heel and yelling a “See ya around!” 

Laura walked into her apartment, quite confused by the hug. But she thought maybe it was better not to read into things, she already did that too much.


	5. Chapter 5

The reader and the talker.

Disclaimers: I do not own any of the rights to the characters from Carmilla.  
—————————————————————————————————-

Chapter 5:

Laura looked at the number in front of her once again. One call, that was all she needed and then her misery and anxiety would be over. Or a text message, but that felt highly impersonal. However, why would she want to get personal with this girl she wondered. It was just a coffee. She had had coffee several times with her friends so why would this be such a big deal? On the other hand, she didn’t know Carmilla well enough to call her her friend just yet. Maybe the word acquaintance was more appropriate, but that also felt wrong. She wasn’t a stranger, she wasn’t an acquaintance either and she wasn’t a friend. What was Carmilla to her? She was annoying, bitchy, arrogant, sexy, charming… wait what? Ok, fine. Carmilla did have her moments when the blond felt like they were being pulled towards each other for some unknown reason but 95% of the time the raven haired girl was just a pain in her butt.

Laura grunted and threw herself on the bed face first. Why was this so hard?! She rolled over onto her back and held the phone above her face, okay she thought maybe a text would do just fine. No, she wouldn’t give in. Her father pushed her to be the very best, always, and a text message wasn’t her best. Before she even understood her own actions she had pushed the call button. Laura shrieked in realisation but it was too late to hang up, the call had already been transferred. She took a deep breath and heard a faith “Hello, you’ve reached Carmilla Karnstein?” on the other line and she quickly realised that she was still holding the phone in front of her and not by her ear. She clumsily put the phone in position.

“Hello?” She answered back uncertainly. There was silence on the line for a couple of seconds before Carmilla answered.

“Yes, hi this is Carmilla Karnstein. May I ask who I'm speaking to?” Laura was shocked by her professional tone but she quickly remembered that this was also her work phone. Who in this century didn’t have a work phone and a private phone she wondered.

“Hi Carmilla! It’s Laura!” She answered quickly, maybe a bit too quickly.

“Oh, hey cupcake. Already wanting that coffee? You miss me already?” Carmilla answered teasingly which made Laura blush.

“ I-I what? No, I mean yes, I was wondering about the coffee. Not that I miss you or anything!” She blurted out the last part.   She heard a chuckle on the other line. “Well, I’m usually free around lunch time or on weekends. What about twelve o'clock tomorrow?” Carmilla suggested. 

Laura thought for a second, thinking about her schedule for the next day. “Hmm, well I have to go and hand out my resume around eleven but-.” Laura was cut off.  
 “One second” Carmilla said. She covered the phone with what Laura assumed was her hand and she could her muffled sounds of people taking in the background. Suddenly the thought hit her that she had no idea what Carmilla profession was but she figured she could ask her tomorrow. 

“Sorry, work stuff. I’m kinda crowded with work but could you keep it short?” Carmilla said hurriedly. 

“Yea, sure. I’m sorry. Yes, twelve will be great. Where?” She asked as she drew her fingers through her hair. 

“Hmm” It sounded like Carmilla was shuffling through some papers as she talked. “Morton's, it’s just by the town hall.” She half mumbled, clearly distracted by work. Laura realised she had probably called Carmilla at a bad time. 

“Yea, sounds great! See you tomorrow!” Laura gleefully replied.  
 “Great, see you there.” And the line went dead. 

Laura put down her phone on her bed and sat still for a couple of seconds before doing a fist pump, proud of herself that the phone call went that well. 

“Not bad Hollis, not bad.” She told herself. Now all she had to do was work a bit on her resume so she could go job hunting tomorrow. 

She loved working at the bookstore but she was a journalist ay heart. It was time for her to actually do what she was longing for. To write at a newspaper.  
The main idea was to start working the bookstore while she went job-hunting, however she had settled in comfort as people tend to do. But after the wine and cheese evening with her friends she had realised, with a bit of persuasion from Perry, Danny and LaFontaine that she had to move on.  
She shifted so that she was sitting crossed legged on her bed and picked up her laptop and cracked her fingers before she started typing. 

———————————————————————————

Laura’s heart was beating so fast she thought it was literally going to rip her ribcage open. She stood in front of The Oracle office with her resume in hand. She had stood in front of the huge glass doors for a couple of minutes now, shaking from either excitement, nerves or maybe both, she hadn’t quite decided yet.  
A man coming out of the building smiled at her politely and held up the door. Laura nodded politely and walked inside. Her mind was going crazy. Really, The Oracle? Why didn’t she go for a smaller company and not the biggest newspaper companies in the world? Well, as her father always told her “Dream big. It’s the first step to success.” Laura let out a long sigh before determinedly walking towards the reception.   On the other side of the counter, a woman was sitting with her hair tightly held up in a bun. However, she wasn’t paying any attention to Laura’s arrival and was frantically typing on her computer, her eyes quickly moving across the computer screen. 

“Hello?” Laura quickly cleared her throat, realising she was sounding quite timid. “Hello!” She tried again, finally catching the woman’s attention. The woman looked up from her screen and smiled at her. 

“Well, hello dear. I’m Natalie, how can I help you?” The woman asked her with kindness in her eyes and completely focused on Laura instead of her computer. 

“Hi, my name is Laura Hollis and I’m here to leave my resume.” She said as she handed the papers to the woman. The woman took the resume in her hand and quickly scanned through. She let out some “Hmm’s” and “Oh’s” here and there as she looked through it. 

“Well, I think it’s better that I would schedule a meeting with the director. How does that sound?" Natalie's blue eyes still glued to the paper.   Laura widened her eyes in excitement. “That would be great!” She exclaimed with a huge smile on her face. 

“Well, how does friday sound around three o’clock?” She continued and finally looked up at Laura. 

“No problem! I’ll be there!” She answered gleefully. 

“Great, see you then. Laura was it?” Laura nodded. “Great, see you on friday!” She flashed Laura one last smile before turning back to her computer. 

Laura left the office walking on clouds. A meeting with the director? That was beyond what she had hoped for! She couldn’t stop smiling and she felt like she was on top of the world. She looked down at her watch and realised it was time to head to the cafe to meet Carmilla. Yup, she thought, this day was going to be great and nothing could bring her down.


	6. Chapter 6

The reader and the talker.

Disclaimers: I do not own any of the rights to the characters from Carmilla.

Chapter 6:

Laura walked inside of the cafe and looked around. She was impressed by the choice of cafe Carmilla had picked. It was very classy, with antlers and beautiful paintings hanging on the walls, a chandelier was hanging from the high ceiling and the place was beautifully decorated with leather sofas and chairs. It surprised her that someone as tough as Carmilla had chosen such a fancy place, however the blond remembered that she barely knew anything about Carmilla, that girl was full of surprises. Laura started her search for Carmilla, figuring she would already be sitting somewhere in the cafe. She spotted her sitting by the window, her hair held up in a loose ponytail instead of usually let down. Laura had to admit that Carmilla looked beautiful as she sat crossed legged with the sunlight shining through the window. She was reading a book and sipping from her red mug.   “Hey!” Laura greeted as she approached the reading woman. Carmilla looked up from her book and saw Laura. 

“Hey, I actually thought you’d bail on me to show me a lesson.” Carmilla said with a dry laugh.

“Honestly, the thought crossed my mind. But that wouldn’t be fair and it’s not really my style.” Laura admitted as she sat down and got comfortable in the leather chair. 

“Well, I’d probably be a bit irritated that’s for sure. But I wouldn’t hold a grudge. Fair is fair.” She answered as she put her book down in her bag. “So, a coffee?” Carmilla asked.

“A hot chocolate for me please.” Laura answered. Carmilla nodded and came back pretty quickly. She handed Laura her hot chocolate and sat down in front of her. 

“What were you reading?” Laura asked curiously as she reached over the table to get a glimpse of the book in Carmillas opened bag.   “I’m reading “The Wave” by Todd Strasser. Do you know of it?” She said as she took up her book again and handed it to Laura. 

“If I do! I actually wrote a paper about it at college!” Laura answered with excited as she flipped through the pages. 

“Really?” Carmilla asked interested as she raised her eyebrow. “It’s actually one of my favourites. I think it’s so interesting at how it’s so easy to change peoples believes like that. As long as you have a strong leader it proves that people work best in pacts. We always need a leader in some way.” She stated as she took a sip of her pitch black coffee. 

“I totally agree.” Laura answered. “Did you by any chance watch the movie?” She questioned.

“Oh, yes I did. I didn’t like it as much as the book though, but it exceeded my expectations. Seeing that usually the movie versions always try to overdo it in some way.” 

“Yea, so true. However some movies actually make great movies even though they were better as books.” Laura answered as she handed her book back to Carmilla who proceeded to tuck it away in her bag.

“You have a point.” Carmilla agreed.

There was silence for a while while the girls sipped their drinks. Carmilla held her mug with both hands as she looked out the window. Laura studied her. She was a beautiful young woman, pale skin, dark hair, a sharp jawline with equally sharp cheekbones. To say that Carmilla was anything but beautiful was false. Carmilla turned her head, meeting Laura’s wandering eyes and smirked at her which caused Laura to quickly look down on the dark wooden floor as she sipped her coco in embarrassment.  
Laura felt embarrassed at being caught glaring at the girl in front of her and she quickly changed the subject.   “So, what do you work with?” Laura asked as she looked up at Carmilla.

She let out an annoyed moan “God, I really don’t feel like talking about work right now. Too much stress. So, how did the job hunting go?” Carmilla changed the subject as she put her mug down and put her elbow on the armrest, trying to get more comfortable. 

Laura’s eyes widened for a second, both at the fact that Carmilla had skipped her question and that she had remembered, thinking that the woman in front of her hadn’t listened to her rambling. “I though you didn’t pay attention to that.” She admitted.

“Well, I’m actually pretty attentive believe it or not.” She smirked at the younger girl in front of her who looked a bit surprised. “I still have a lot of surprises up my sleeves.” She answered with an smirk on her face. “So, tell me. How did it go creampuff?” 

“Well, actually it went great. I went to “The Oracle” if you-“   “You went to The Oracle?!” Carmilla interrupted as she raised her eyebrows in surprise. This was the first time Laura had seen Carmilla react like a normal person instead of her usual cold self, as Laura liked to put it. She was a bit taken aback by it actually. 

“Yea…is there a problem with that?” She asked confused at the raven haired girl in front of her. 

She let out a tiny chuckle and shook her head. “Wow, you’re in for a ride cupcake.”   “What does that mean?” Laura asked as she tilted her head, even more confused now than ever.

“Oh, nothing buttercup.” Suddenly Carmilla had a huge smile on her face, but it wasn’t a happy smile. More a smile that said “I know something you don’t” and it annoyed Laura. But she was having a nice time that she figured she wouldn’t ask. 

Laura let out a huff. “Well, anyway it went great. I actually got an interview with the director on friday!” She said with a proud smile on her face. 

“With the director?!” Carmilla exclaimed as she jumped up in her chair, her mouth opened wide as she let out a laugh. “Hell, good luck with that sweetheart.” She answered with a grin on her face as she shook her head in disbelief. 

“What is your problem?” Laura asked with an annoyed tone as she frowned at the girl in front of her.

“My problem? Oh, nothing.” Carmilla said as she continued grinning and shook her head. “It’s just…it’s such a big deal you know? Getting an interview directly from the director of The Oracle!” 

“Are you being sarcastic?” Laura was starting to get really annoyed. Once again the woman in front of her had showed a humane side for a couple of minutes before she turned back to being a pain in the butt. Carmilla bit her first, trying not to let out another laugh as she shook her head. 

“You know what! I was having a really good time with you! And yet again you’re showing that you're an idiotic, annoying b-b-bad person!” Laura had raised her voice by then, making the other customers turn around, trying to figure out what was going on by their table. “I’m actually really excited for this job and all you can do is laugh. This could be my big break and you don’t even take that into consideration! How can you be so insensitive?!” Laura let out a huge huff before she stood up in her chair ready to leave but Carmilla took hold of her hand before she could start walking.

“Laura, hey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I promise. I’m just shocked that’s all.” Carmilla said, this time not laughing as she still held her hand in a firm grip. She actually looked sincere and Laura frowned down at her before angrily sitting down again and crossing her arms. 

“Fine. But then you have to explain what’s so funny.” She said sternly. Carmilla was taken aback. This girl kept on shocking her. First of all, most girls would probably have left after that. Or if they decided to stay they wouldn’t force Carmilla to speak. They would probably say sorry about the whole outburst and change topic. Carmilla always had the upper hand when it came to other people, but Laura had balls and that surprised her. She was happily amused for a matter of fact. She was different and not like all the other girls. She was a challenge and that interested Carmilla. 

Carmilla looked intensely into Laura’s eyes before breaking contact. “Well, you’ll see on friday okay? I promise you, you’ll understand.”

“Should I be worried?” Laura asked as she frowned and tilted her head again. She had been doing that a lot since her arrival at the cafe but the girl in front of her confused her immensely. 

“You’ll be fine. So, how come you chose Journalism?” Carmilla asked interested as she changed the subject. 

Laura ran her hand through her hair in frustration and let out a huff. 

“What?” Carmilla asked confused as she frowned at the younger woman. 

“Okay, you’re subject change thingy might work on others but not me. Tell me something about yourself. Or I’m leaving.” She looked at Carmilla with a stern look, challenge written all over her face. Carmilla leaned back in her chair, put her elbow on the armrest and leaned her head against her hand. She drew in a long whiff off air through her nose before letting it out through her mouth. This girl was killing her. 

“Fine.” Carmilla answered annoyed after a couple of seconds of silence. “Well…” She clapped her hands together before continuing. “My name is Carmilla Karnstein. I’m twenty-six years old. I have a brother named Will. We’re also roommates. On my free time I love reading. I have a cat named William after the writer of Lord of the Flies and my favourite drink is red wine. You done now?” Carmilla seemed uneasy by telling Laura all of that. She looked everywhere else than at the girl in front of her. Laura realised she might have pushed the raven haired girl too hard. She actually felt a bit guilty. 

There was an awkward silence for a couple of seconds. Laura didn’t really know how to react towards Carmilla now. She had made her feel extremely uncomfortable. Even though the information Carmilla had given her wasn’t that personal or groundbreaking she realised Carmilla probably had difficulty sharing these kinds of things.  
Laura reached over and grabbed Carmillas hand which made the older woman flinch back. But Laura held on and Carmilla finally looked at her. 

“Yes, I’m done. I’m sorry I pushed you. I didn’t realise you found it that uncomfortable.” She looked at Carmilla with concerned eyes as she stroked her hand. “I promise I won’t do that again okay?”   Carmilla looked away again but didn’t tug her hand away and actually let Laura continue to stroke it. “Thanks…” She took a deep breath before continuing. “I should head back.” She admitted.   Laura felt stupid, so stupid. Why did she do that to her. The proud woman in front of her suddenly seemed so small. Guilty wouldn’t even describe how Laura was feeling right now. 

“I’m not forcing you, but I know you still have forty minutes off before your break is over. And as you earlier stated, there’s a lot at work right now and you need to relax. If you want to we could just sit here and talk about other things? I’m actually pretty good at rambling.” Laura said with a chuckle. “If that’s okay for you?” 

Carmilla looked at her for a couple of seconds before smiling a small smile at her. “I would like that… I would like that very much actually.”

Laura smiled a huge smile at the girl in front of her and let go of her hand. “Great! Well lets see, hmm what could I start rambling about? So many possibilities.” Laura said as she started tapping her hand against her chin. They both started laughing. 

“God, what have I gotten myself into?” Carmilla answered with a chuckle as she shook her head. 

Those forty minutes passed fast, too fast actually to both girls liking. 

“And that’s why I love cookies.” Laura finished with a huge grin on her face which made Carmilla chuckle at the girl in front of her. 

“I don’t understand how you aren’t obese by now.” She said as she let out a chuckle. Before Laura could answer a sarcastic answer, Carmilla looked at her phone. “Shit, I’m going to run late for my meeting. I need to get back to work.” She said.

“You don’t sound too pleased.” Laura noted. 

“Trust me, I love my job. But it’s just a bit hectic right now that’s all.” Carmilla answered as she stood up and started putting on her jacket. 

“By the way, what do you work with?” Laura tried again. Carmilla stopped her movements and looked at the shorter girl with a smirk on her thin lips. 

“Well, I have to keep some air of mystery. Don’t I?” Carmilla smirked at Laura as she raised an eyebrow. Laura felt her mouth go dry. “Besides, it’s more fun that way.” She continued with a shoulder shrug. 

“Well, aren’t you mysterious enough?” Laura answered back with cocky smile. Carmilla let out a chuckle. 

The girls got ready to leave and picked up their belonging and went out the door. 

“So, what way are you going?” Laura asked curiously. 

“I’m going that way.” Carmilla said as she pointed down the street. 

“Oh well, I’m going that way.” She answered as she pointed at the opposite direction. There was silence after that and the girls looked at each other uncertainly, not really knowing how to say goodbye. They stood looking at each other like that for a while half laughing and smiling at how silly they were acting. Carmilla looked down and shook her head and let out a small laugh. “I should get going.” While making some weird hand movement.  “Yea, me too.” Laura agreed. 

“Well, see you around cutie.” Carmilla said as she started to walk backwards waving before turning around. Laura waved back and blushed lightly at Carmilla’s nickname for her. Laura turned around and started walking down the street with a huge smile on her face.

“Hey!” Laura heard Carmilla yell after her and she turned around looking at the woman standing a couple of feet away from her. “On friday Kirch is having this private party at the bar. Maybe you would like to come by?” 

“Yes of course!” Laura yelled back with a huge smile on her face.

“Great. See you friday!” Carmilla answered with a smile on her face. They both stood still, watching each other for a couple of seconds before Carmilla shook her head again in amusement and turned her heel. 

Laura turned around and she was smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. That had exceeded any of her expectations. She had never believed in a million years that it would have gone that great. When she turned the corner and knew there was no chance of Carmilla seeing her she did a little victory jump. She was feeling butterflies in her entire body and she didn’t care if that freaked her out like it normally did. She was just too happy. Suddenly she felt a vibration coming from her pocket. She quickly took up her phone, wondering if Carmilla had already sent her a text, but to her surprised it was an unregistered number. 

“Hey Laur, it’s Danny! I asked LaFontaine for your number. I was wondering if we could grab lunch sometime this week? :)”


	7. Chapter 7

The reader and the talker.

Disclaimers: I do not own any of the rights to the characters from Carmilla.

Chapter 7:

It was Thursday and Laura was on her way to meet Danny at a restaurant downtown. Danny had picked the restaurant and Laura had never even heard of the place. But Laura loved trying new things so she was rather excited to meet her newfound friend. She was however still a bit confused at how they had left things the last time they had met. However, she decided to put that aside. She liked Danny, a lot. She was funny, smart, openminded and she fit wonderfully with her other friends. 

She turned the corner and saw the sign she was looking for. “Antonio’s Pizza” it read. It had been a while since Laura had eaten pizza and she was starving! Or well, it was actually last week she ate pizza but for her it felt like an eternity. She walked through the door into the tiny restaurant. She looked around and the place, well, it wasn’t the cleanest of all places Laura had been at. However, it did have this cozy Italian style to it which made up for it. 

Laura saw the redhead sitting with her back turned to her, looking down at the menu. Laura walked up to the tall girl.

“Hey Danny!” Laura greeted with a huge smile. Danny turned to face her and smiled broadly at her and pushed out her chair and brought her into a tight hug which Laura happily accepted.

“Hey Laur! I tell you, this place might not look that fancy, but I promise you, they have the best pizzas in town.” Danny said excitedly as Laura took her seat in front of the tall girl.

“Really now?” Laura raised an eyebrow in amusement as in challenging Danny’s judgment. “Well, that is a pretty big statement your making there.” She continued playfully as she took up her menu and started going through the different kinds of pizzas.

“Well, I wouldn’t take such a pretty girl like yourself to just any restaurant.” Danny answered back as she looked at Laura over her menu. Laura frowned for a couple of seconds before letting Danny’s comment go.   “So, what are you getting?” Laura asked as she scanned through the menu. 

“I was thinking about Cozze witch has… hmm let’s see now. Yes, Mozzarella, scampi, mussels, parsley, fresh garlic and scallops!” She closed her menu and put it by her side. “What about you?” Danny asked with a smile on her face. 

“Well, I was thinking about Vesuvio. If a pizza restaurant can pull off the simplest pizza by making it somehow different to the other restaurants, then in my eyes they have proven themselves.” She answered as she put down her menu. 

Danny laughed at the girl in front of her. “Wow, you really take your pizzas seriously” She said with a huge smile on her face.

“Eum, if you didn’t notice this Monday already, I take my food very seriously. Food is basically life! Without food we wouldn’t be alive!” She exclaimed as Danny giggled at how passionate Laura was being.

“Yea trust me I noticed. It’s kinda cute… in a extremely weird way that is!” Danny said playfully.

“Hey!” Laura blurted out as she playfully hit Danny with her menu. “I’m not weird and as my dad always told me, I’m just different.” She nodded with a proud look on her face. 

“Well of course he had to say that, you’re his daughter.” Danny answered back playfully, which earned her another hit from Laura’s menu. Both girls were laughing hysterically and suddenly they heard someone clearing their throat. The girls started giggling at the realisation that the waiter stood sternly looking down at them. 

“So, have you made a choice ladies?” He asked, equally sternly.

The woman cleared their throat as they both held back their laughing. 

“Yes, I’ll have a diet Coke with the Cozze pizza.” Danny said as she handed her menu to the waiter.

“Aaaaand, I’ll have a Pepsi with the Vesuvio.” Laura added as she gave her menu to the waiter who wrote down both orders down before taking their menus.   “You’re drinks will arrive soon.” He said firmly as he retired back to the kitchen. 

Laura and Danny looked at each other before giggling again. “Jeez, whats up his butt?” Danny said between giggles. 

The waiter had returned with their drinks and quickly went over to another table, taking the other customers orders.   Laura started drinking from her drink and caught Danny looking at her. “What?” She questioned as she looked at Danny with a frown on her face.

“Well, I didn’t take you for a Pepsi girl.” She said as she shrugged her shoulders. Laura swallowed her drink with a big gulp before answering.

“Ah, well you see, in my opinion pepsi is just better.” She stated simply as she drew her fingers through her hair. 

“Hmm…” Danny put her hand by her chin and started stroking it like she had a beard. 

“What?” Laura wondered as she tilted her head.

“Hmm… no I was only agreeing to my earlier analysis. You’re defiantly weird. Weird but cute.” Danny said still stroking her fake bread as a playful smile appearing on her lips. 

Laura huffed and crossed her arms childishly. “Fine. As long as I’m cute I’m happy I guess.” She said in a childlike voice which made both girls snicker. “You’re a dork.” Laura said as their snickering had subsided. 

“Hey, who’s the dork here? LaFontaine told me about your obsession of Ron and Snape fan fiction.” Danny continued with a raised eyebrow. Laura’s jaw dropped.

“I told they in confidence!” She exclaimed in embarrassment. “Remind me to never tell LaFontaine anything embarrassing in the future.” She said as she hid her blush behind her hands. 

“Well, it’s quite funny though. Don’t be embarrassed Laur, at least you have a passion.” Danny remarked with a kind eyes.

“Well, I wouldn't call fan fiction a passion... are you passionate about something?” Laura asked curiously. Suddenly Danny’s smile fell from her face and her eyes diverted to the table. 

“Well…” She started. “I used to be, or I still am but yea…” She finished uncertainly. 

Laura frowned at the redhead in front of her. Interested by what could have changed her mood from playful to so serious in moments. 

“What? You can tell me, I promise won’t judge.” But Danny still didn’t look up at the girl in front of her. Her eyes still glued on the table. “Danny…” Laura said sadly and reached over to grab her hand. “Hey, I really like you okay? You can tell me. I won’t be like LaFontaine and tell others.” She said with a chuckle. 

“You like me?” Danny finally looked up with a glimpse in her eyes. 

“Yea of course I do Danny! You’re smart, you’re so funny. I’ve only met you once and we are laughing like we’ve known each other for years! You’re awesome!” She said with a smile on her face as she started stroking Danny’s hand.   Danny covered Laura’s hand with her own and smiled up at Laura. “I like you too. You’re awesome.” She looks at Laura intensely for a couple of seconds before she broke eye contact again.

“So, you want to tell me your passion. No judging, I promise.” She said, she put up both of her hands in a surrender gesture as she let go of Danny’s hand. 

“Well, I used to play lacrosse. I was actually really good at it. I was captain and everything. But then one match went wrong. We were in the finals and I took a bad hit to the knee. I haven’t been able to play since.” She finishes off sadly. 

Laura looks at her with compassion before grabbing her hand again. “I’m so sorry that happened to you Danny, I bet you were great.” She said with sympathy as she gently stroked the taller girls hand. 

Danny lets out a chuckle. “I was freaking great, I had a scholarship and everything. But well… because that didn’t turn out like I planned I had to study economics instead. I love maths and logical thinking, but I’ve always wondered, you know, what would have happened if I didn’t get hurt that day.” She wondered sadly. 

Laura felt bad for the girl in front of her. She had a dream and it got taken from her. It just wasn’t fair. But if there was something she had learned in life is that sometimes life just isn’t fair.

“Well, life isn’t fair sometimes. I know that. My mom died in a car accident, my dad and I made it out fine with just a few scratches. But she…well, she didn’t.” Laura said with a sad smile on her face as Danny looked up at her.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Laura.” She said as she squinted her eyes as her. 

“Yea, me too. But hey, guess what.” Laura said with a genuine smile on her face. 

“What?” Danny asked.

“If those things wouldn’t have happened in our lives we probably wouldn’t be here today. Eating the city’s best pizza, am I right?” Laura said with a encouraging smile on her face. 

Danny let out a chuckle. “Yea, you’re right. This might be the worlds best pizza.” 

“Hey now, let’s not over-exaggerate. Nothing beats Italian pizza!” She said as she playfully frowned at the girl in front of her. 

The girls were interrupted by the waiter coming back with their pizzas and Laura let go of Danny’s hand so he had enough place to put down the two plates on the table. 

“Here you go, two of the city’s best pizzas!” He said with a smile on his face. Which shocked both of them, seeing that he had been acting so rudely before. Probably because they weren’t making as much noise anymore. 

Laura took a bite of her pizza and her tastebuds exploded with the rich taste. 

“Oh my god! You weren’t kidding where you?!” Laura said in amazement, still with food in her mouth. 

Danny mumbled a “Mhmm!” as she took another bite.

———————————————————————————

Laura let out a moan of satisfaction as she patted her stomach.   “God, that might be one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had!” She said as she took a sip of her Pepsi. 

“I told you!” Danny said with excitement in her voice.

The waiter walked up to the two stuffed girls. “Anything else?” He asked politely. 

“I’m full, what about you Danny?” Laura asked as she tried to sit up straight without making her pants explode from the pressure of her full stomach. It was a challenge though. 

“God, I will not be able to eat for days! The check would be great though.” Danny said as she looked at the waiter who nodded his head and went to the cash register. 

“I can’t believe I haven’t gone here before!” Laura said in amazement and bewilderment. 

“Good thing I brought you here then!” Danny answered with a satisfied smile on her face. 

The waiter came back with the check and left it on the table and just as Laura was reaching for her wallet, Danny interrupted her.   “Oh no, I’m paying for this.” She stated as she brought out her wallet and started counting her cash. 

“Danny you really don’t need to.” Laura insisted, still picking up her wallet.

“Nonsense, you payed me in company and I pay you with food.” She said simply as she put out her money on the table. 

“I do like the sound of that. But are you sure?” Laura insisted once again.

“Yes.”   “Are you sure?” Laura repeated.

Danny let out a chuckle. “Yes Laura, I promise it’s fine! No worries, I got this!” Laura still looked unsure though, however Danny grabbed her hand and and looked into Laura’s eyes intensely. “Laur, I promise it’s fine.”  
 Laura let out a sigh. “If you say so. But you know I can take care of myself right?” She looked at with a questioned look on her face.

“Of course I know that!” Danny answered with a smile on her face. “Come on, lets get out of here.” She said as she nodded towards the door. 

The girls bid their farewell to the waiter and were now standing outside of the restaurant. 

“What now?” Danny questioned as she looked at the shorter girl.

“Well, actually I need to head back. I have some laundry I need to take care of and some other chores.” Laura admitted as she looked up at the redhead. 

“Ah, yes the peeks of being an adult.” They both chuckled. 

“Well, I had a great time today Laur. You’re awesome and thank you.” “For what?” Laura wondered as she squinted her eyes at the redhead.   “Well, for being supportive when I told you the lacrosse thing. I don’t know but it meant a lot to me you know?” Danny said unsurely as she scratched her neck. 

“No problem, I’m here for you.” Laura said with reassurance in her eyes. Danny looked at her and smiled a small smile before blushing slightly before looking away. Laura found it odd that the taller girl blushed at her comment but Laura figured she was just a bit shy. 

“Well, when will I see you again?” Danny wondered.

“I don’t know. Next time you contact me about food?” Laura said playfully with a grin on her face which caused Danny to chuckle. 

“How aren’t you fat by now?” She replied humorously. 

“Good genes I guess.” Laura answered as she shrugged her shoulders. 

“Hey, I was thinking. Have you heard about that private party Kirch is having on friday?” 

“Yea, I’m going to that actually!” 

“Really? That’s awesome! Then I’ll see you friday?” Danny said with a huge grin on her face. 

“You bet!” Laura answered as she swung her arm up which made Danny roll her eyes at her silliness. 

Laura opened her arms for a quick goodbye hug, but to her surprise, Danny pulled her in by her waist, holding her tightly against her tall body. Laura honestly felt a bit uncomfortable with the intimacy they were sharing but she figured she was just a very affectionate person seeing that this was how they had bid farewell the last time. Laura laughed nervously and pushed her off slightly. And the redhead looked at her a bit confused but the confusion in her eyes quickly disappeared.

“Well, see you on friday Danny!” Laura said as she started walking towards her apartment.

Danny stood there for a couple of moments, smiling at Laura as she disappeared around the corner. Laura Hollis was defiantly something else, she though.


	8. Chapter 8

The reader and the talker.

Disclaimers: I do not own any of the rights to the characters from Carmilla.

Chapter 8:

Laura took one last look at herself in the mirror and fixed her blazer one last time. She smiled confidently at herself before making a grimace. She felt so confident about the interview but at the same time she was extremely nervous. This could be her big break as a journalist! This day was extremely important to her and she had to look flawless, confident and determined. She made a determined face at the mirror and let out a moan of frustration. She was extremely nervous and she could feel that her hands were already getting clammy. She couldn’t shake the directors hand with sweaty hands, that was just not an option. She breathed in deeply, closed her eyes and counted backwards from ten and let out a long breath.   “Okay Laura, you can do this! And IF it goes bad you’re still meeting Carmilla tonight!” Uh uh, another thing to be nervous about. Jeez, couldn’t she just catch a break? She shook her head quickly and nodded at herself in the mirror in determination.  
She heard a vibration on the bed and she turned around and took up her phone. There were a couple of text messages from Perry, LaFontaine, Danny and Carmilla all wishing her good luck. She read Carmillas text several times, which read “Good luck cupcake.” and she already felt calmer. She decided it was time to get going and she headed out the door. Quickly remembering that she forgot her wallet and ran inside one last time before leaving her apartment, more nervous than she had ever been in her entire life.

—————————————

She entered The Oracle office and walked up to Natalie, the receptionist, who was on the phone. She awkwardly stood waiting for her to be done, shifting from foot to foot. If someone else saw her they would probably think that she really needed to go pee. 

Natalie looked up and saw Laura waiting for her and flashed her a kind smile and put up her finger, gesturing for her to wait a second. 

“Excuse me, one second.” She said to the person on the other line and covered her hand over the phone. “Hi sweetie, interview at three o’clock. Laura Hollis right?” She asked in a hushed voice so the person on the other line wouldn’t hear her.

Laura nodded rapidly at the receptionist who smiled at her. “The Director is ready to see you. Her office is on the fifth floor to the left.” She said kindly as she pointed towards the elevator and returned back to her phone call. Laura nodded once again and started walking towards the elevator. 

Laura pressed the button and stood waiting for the lift. “Her?” She thought. For some reason she had always thought it was a he. However Laura smiled a satisfied smile, impressed that the person leading the whole organisation was in fact a woman. The ding of the elevator brought her out of her thoughts and she walked into the elevator, pressing the butting with the number five on it. Suddenly, she realised she had studied everything about the company except from the director. Her heart dropped. It felt like she was in high school again and she realised she had studied the wrong chapters for a test. Which only happened once, thank god, but still. She was starting to get nervous again and she had no idea who was going to be there on the other side of the door. She didn’t even know her name. To say she was freaking out was an understatement. She saw how she quickly moved from floor to floor and took a deep breath and mumbled “You got this Laura, you’re a Hollis. We always make it through…well almost”. The elevator doors opened and she took one last breath before exiting and turning left. She saw a big door in front of her with the text “Director’s office” neatly written on it. However something else caught her eye. Under that it stood in smaller letters “Karnstein”. Her belly made a unpleasant turn. That explained everything! That was why Carmilla reacted like she did! She knew all along! That’s why Carmilla had laughed. That was why she didn’t want to tell her where she worked! SHE was the freaking director of The Oracle! “That sneaky bastard!” She mumbled as she clenched her fists together. She knocked loudly on the door, biting her lip in irritation.  
She heard a faint “Come in” on the other side of the door. She aggressively opened the door, ready to take Carmilla head on and she was planning on telling her how unfair she had been acting towards her. 

But as she barged in to her surprise an older woman looked up from her desk, quite surprised at Laura’s aggressive entry and Laura looked equally surprised in return. The woman sitting down in her leather armchair looked like she was in her early fifty. Her hair tied back firmly into a bun, showing all of her stern features. The woman was frowning, the wrinkles on her forehead strengthening and she didn’t look happy at Laura’s aggressive entry. 

“Take a seat, Miss Hollis.” The woman ordered firmly. 

Laura was so confused and she felt that all her planning had gone right out the window. “Eum…” She started unsurely. Still standing in the middle of the room and looking like a lost puppy. “I couldn’t get open the door so I had to push extra hard. Sorry for the rude entry…” She said with a nervous laugh. 

“Take a seat, Miss Hollis.” The woman repeated more sternly than before and pointed at the seat in front of her desk. 

“Yes of course!” She said hurriedly as she quickly took a seat in front of the slightly greyed haired woman. 

“Well, at least you aren’t tardy.” She said with no emotion in her voice. This interview was going to be harder than she had anticipated. 

“I always try to be on time, I hate being late.” Laura told the woman in front of her.  
 “Try?” The older woman questioned her with a raised eyebrow. 

“Well, I can’t remember the last time I was late actually and I always leave my apartment extra early so I’m always on time and-“ The woman in front of her put her hand up signalling her to be quite. Laura pressed her lips tightly together. The woman was intimidating.

“Do you know who I am?” The woman in front of her questioned coldly. Well, it felt more like an interrogation Laura though.

“Yes of course. You’re the director of The Oracle. Mrs Karnstein.” Laura said with a nervous smile on her face.

“Well obviously.” The woman said dryly. “That was not the question. Anyone could have guessed that seeing that you are in fact at The Oracles office and both those facts are clearly written on my door. My question is, do you know who I am?” She squinted her eyes at Laura, studying her every move. Honestly, the woman reminded Laura of a lizard. She was still extremely beautiful for her age, however she was extremely uncomfortable. 

Laura opened her mouth to say something and closed it again. Tried again and closed it again. “No.” She admitted in shame. She felt like Anne Hathaway in the movie “The Devil wears Prada”. “I forgot to look up that part.”

“So, you’re telling me you came into my office, without knowing who I am? And thought you would get a job?” The woman said coldly and a hint of disbelief in her voice. 

“I-“   “I am Elizabeth Karnstein. The Director of one of the biggest newspapers in America.” She stated as she stood up as she held her hands behind her back and walked towards the window and turned her back to Laura. “In the world you might even say. You come in here, first of all with no experience except from your University studies and expect to get hired? We are one of the leading newspapers in the world. We are correct, we are strong” The woman took a pause before continuing. “We are a newspaper who has been going strong for over a hundred years now and you expect me to hire YOU?!” The woman huffed in disbelief as she shook her head. “Miss Hollis, do you know why I love my job?” She questioned. But Laura was afraid to answer, feeling that Mrs. Karnstein would interrupt her again. But the silence filling the room was growing. 

“Well?” The older woman asked impatiently. 

“Because you are passionate about what you do and you believe in your work.” Laura said timidly as she looked down at her hands that where hardly joined together in her lap. 

“True.” It sounded like she was smiling. “But also, because I am helping people all over the world to get to the truth.” She said as she took up her first and gripped it tightly. “The truth Miss Hollis, is what the people are thriving for. Throughout centuries people have searched for the truth, truth of who murdered who, what politician slept with who and especially where we all came from. Humans nurture on the truth. It makes them feel calm and that’s how you keep the people controlled. This is not only a newspaper. This is a source.” She turned around and her blue grey eyes bored into hers. Laura was for the first time in her life afraid of someone. This woman was so extremely powerful. She though Carmilla could be cold at times, but this woman however- wait… was this Carmillas mother? She scrunched her face in confusion at the realisation.

“You seem confused.” Elizabeth Karnstein noted. “Did I not make myself clear enough?” 

“No, you made yourself clear ma’am- I mean Mrs Karnstein.” Laura corrected herself quickly.

“Well, The Oracle do not have time for children like you.” She held eye contact with her for a couple of seconds before Laura looked away. It felt like a predator was watching its pray. Laura being the pray of course. The one who won would be the defeated, eaten alive, killed and that was exactly how Laura was feeling right now. 

“Now, get out of my office. I don’t have time for naive little girls like you.” The woman turned around and sat down at her desk again. Not even looking up at Laura as she put on her reading glasses and started going through the files in front of her. Laura wanted to cry, she wanted to scream. She felt so humiliated. On weak legs she stood up and started walking towards the door but as she laid her hand on the handle she took a deep breath before turning around. 

“No.” She said. 

“Excuse me?” The woman said as she took of her reading glasses and looked up at Laura.

“You heard me. I don’t care who you are. No one, and I mean no one talks to me like that. You might be a big shot. You might be the director of one of the biggest newspaper company in the world. But show some respect. Sure, people want to know the truth but I’ll tell you the truth! People need respect and they need to feel safe. And YOU are not a person who makes people feel safe!” She pointed angrily at the director before continuing. “You push them down. You didn’t even shake my hand when I came in and I felt so humiliated! I might not have experience except from the high-school newspaper and the University newspaper. But I’ll tell you something Mrs. Karnstein. I have respect, I am driven, I am passionate and I will always find with the truth. That’s why I’m here today. Because I believe I can be a big asset to your company!” Laura took a deep breath before realising what she had just done. She had just yelled at one of the biggest newspaper directors in the world. Goodbye journalism dream she though. She stood there panting frantically, waiting for some kind of response from the woman sitting in front of her. The director held her glasses in her hand and pointed at her.   “Get. Out of my office. Now.” Laura gulped and basically ran out of her office. She ran to the elevator and pressed the button rapidly over and over again. She was loosing it, she was hyperventilating and she felt the world around her spinning. The elevator door opened and she basically jumped in and hit the button which would take her to the reception. The elevator was going down and so was her career before it had even started. Laura put her head in her hands and let out a scream. She was crying, she had messed up big time. She quickly dried her eyes as she realised she was soon on the bottom floor and tried to calm down her breathing. The elevator door opened and she walked out tensely. Trying to act normal. She passed some people in suits laughing as they drunk their coffee. She was just about to get out of the office before she heard someone yell after her.

“Miss Hollis?” She turned around and saw Natalie looking at her worriedly. It was probably not the first time she had seen something like this happen and Laura now understood why she was so kind to her. She knew this was coming. She took a deep breath before answering. 

“Yes, Natalie.” She didn’t even recognise her own voice anymore. It was so close to breaking. 

“I have Mrs. Karnstein on the phone. She wants you to head back to her office immediately.” To say that Natalie looked worried was an understatement. Laura felt her heart beat quicken. She couldn’t walk back up there. She just couldn’t. She was about to collapse. But she realised that she didn’t have any other choice and nodded and turned around. Hoping the nightmare could end soon.

The elevator stopped at the fifth floor and Laura took her thousand deep breath for that day, walked out and turned towards the directors office again. She took another deep breath and slapped herself in the face a couple of times, preparing herself for the scolding of her life and she knocked on the door once again, this time however not as aggressively. 

“Come in Miss Hollis.” Mrs. Karnstein said through the door.   Laura opened the door and stood lost in the middle of her office again. Elizabeth was standing looking out the window again, her hands firmly gripped behind her back and she was so silent that you couldn’t even hear her breathing. Maybe because Laura’s heart was beating so loudly and she wondered if the other woman could hear it too. Laura started walking towards the seat. 

“No need to sit down, Miss Hollis. This will be quick.” The woman said coldly, still not turning around to face her. Laura stood absolutely still, worried that one wrong move and the director would start yelling at her.

The director took a deep breath before saying. “You got the job.” 

Laura dropped her jaw. Wait, what just happened?! She stopped breathing for a couple of seconds. Was this a hallucination? Was she actually at the hospital because her heart gave out for beating too rapidly?   “W-what?” Laura finally let out.

“You heard me, you got the job.” She repeated.

“I don’t understand…” Laura said after a couple of seconds of silence.

“Are you stupid too?” The woman questioned, finally turning around to face her.

“But why?” Laura questioned, ignoring the comment about her being stupid. “I yelled at you, I screamed at you…” Laura continued, more confused than ever. 

“Yes, yes you did, Miss Hollis. But I’ll tell you what you also did. You told me the truth.” She said, but her face was still cold. Laura still stood quite in the middle of the room. The director went over to her desk and sat on it with crossed legs and held up her hand at her which was also holding her glasses.

“You see, for fifteen years I’ve been working for this company as the director. I’ve seen so many of your kind. Young, hopeful, full of life. But as soon as I tell them what I just told you they either run out with their tails between their legs or crying. You however” the woman let out a chuckle. “You told me the truth. You didn’t run, even though I saw that you wanted to flee from the situation. You turned around and stood your ground. You’re a fighter Hollis and that’s exactly the people I am looking for. You’re something else.” Mrs Karnstein stoop up and walked over to Laura and held out her hand waiting for Laura to shake it.   “Welcome to The Oracle, Miss Hollis.”


	9. Chapter 9

The reader and the talker.

Disclaimers: I do not own any of the rights to the characters from Carmilla.

Chapter 9:

 

It was a bit over seven and Carmilla was a bit concerned. She had texted Laura after her interview however she hadn’t gotten a response yet. She felt a bit guilty, she probably should have told Laura that the Director was her mother. But she couldn’t help it though, the thought of seeing Laura react to her last name written on the door was just too hilarious. However, after their coffee Carmilla started to regret more and more that she didn’t tell the shorter girl about what was about to come. She wouldn’t be surprised if Laura decided not to come tonight. They had agreed on meeting up at Carmilla’s apartment before going to the party to drink a glass of champagne, however now she was second guessing that happening. 

Carmilla took another look at herself in the mirror and fixed her black top once more. She had always been impatient but now she was getting antsy. She had gone out and bought expensive champagne, put on her best pair of leather pants and even cleaned the apartment. She was shocked at how much time she had invested for the night, with lighting candles, putting on some background music and made it over all very inviting. She smacked her red-lipstick covered lips before heading into the living room pouring herself a glass of champagne. 

She sat down in the leather chair in a huff and looked at her phone again, it was quarter past seven and still no sign of Laura. She shouldn’t care this much she thought to herself. First of all what did she expect, of course Laura would be pissed at her after the encounter with her mother. Also, her mother probably tore the poor girl apart. Secondly, she was just some other girl, she was just like the others. No… actually she wasn’t. 

William jumped up into her lap and nuzzled against her chest. She smiled sadly at the black furred cat who looked up at her with equally dark eyes.   “William, mama messed up badly. But I’m not a bad person right?” She asked as she itched him behind his ear. He purred in response.  
 “You always understand me… God I’m going to end up alone and become a crazy cat lady.” She said grimaced. “Well, at least I have you.” 

Before Carmilla could continue her one-sided conversation, there was a harsh knock on the door which made her jump up in her seat making William fall off her lap. She walked briskly to the door and she took a deep breath to get ready for the scolding she was about to get before she opened the door.

She opened the door to be met with a not so happy Laura in front of her. She didn’t look happy at all actually, her arms crossed and a stern frown on her face. 

“We actually have a doorbell.” Carmilla said dryly, trying to be her sarcastic self, she didn’t want to show how shocked she actually was that Laura even showed up tonight. 

“Well, maybe I just didn’t feel like using the doorbell and being a civil human being towards you right now.” She said with a huff and walked past Carmilla.

“Well, walk right in cupcake.” The taller woman said sarcastically as Laura took of her jacket and hung it up on the hanger. Carmilla dragged her hand through her long hair, feeling that this evening wouldn’t turn out at all like she expected.

“So, you have a lot of explaining to do.” Laura said with irritation as she turned around and pointed at the taller woman. 

“What is there to explain?” Carmilla stated simply as she shrugged her shoulders before turning around and taking a seat on the couch. “Do you want some champagne?” She asked, trying to avoid the conversation she was dreading. 

“Oh no, don’t you pull that on me again.” Laura’s voice raising a bit. “Can you please explain why you didn’t tell me that your mother or aunt, whatever, was the director?!” 

Carmilla looked at Laura for a second before letting out a sign and leaning back on her couch. “Do you really want me to be honest?” She asked, getting a bit nervous over Laura’s reaction that would come. 

“Yes, now tell me.”

“Fine, just come and sit down first. You’ll probably leave after this and it would be a shame to waste such good champagne.” Laura hesitated for a second before coming over, taking the glass Carmilla handed her and sitting down. 

“Well?” Laura asked impatiently as she turned to face her as she leaned her arm against the armrest.

“Well, I thought it would be funny.” She said, avoiding Laura’s glare.

“Excuse me, what?” Laura asked, the anger in her voice clearly showing.

Carmilla nervously pulled her hand through her hair. “Yea, I thought it would be funny but I didn’t really think of the consequences I guess. I mean, I get that you’d be put off by the name but I don’t know. I guess I didn’t realise that this actually meant a lot to you and I should have told you it’s just I didn’t know how and-“   “You had many opportunities to tell me. First at the cafe and might I add that texting is a thing? Remember we’ve been texting the last couple of days so you could have done that!” 

“I-“ Carmilla started but Laura interrupted with a pointed finger right in her face.

“To say that I am irritated at you is an understatement. You knew and you didn’t tell me! I walked into the office all confident but then when I saw YOUR last name on the door I was so irritated. I thought it was you who was the director so I basically kicked down the door. And to my surprise, when I walked in I wasn’t met by you, I lost all focus. Everything I had practiced on went out the window. I couldn’t even think straight!” Laura let out a long breath after her aggressive speech. 

“Cupcake I’m so-“   “No, let me finish. This is my career we are talking about Carmilla. Don’t you understand that that is pretty serious?! I mean christ, people can be insensitive. But that was just low. Even for you.” She finished and looked down at her glass, not even looking at the woman next to her anymore. Carmilla genuinely felt bad for the girl next to her. She knew her mother and she had probably crushed the poor thing. Laura was right, this was her career and that Carmilla hadn’t even considered it and it made her disgusted with herself. 

“Cupcake, I’m sorry… I don’t know what I was thinking. It was stupid and-“   “Yes, it was extremely stupid. You must have had a laugh didn’t you?”   “I thought I would, but I’ve been feeling bad all day. I should have told you…” Carmilla admitted as she looked down in shame. It wasn’t often she was ashamed of herself. But for once the taller girl actually felt shame. It is one thing to joke around with people but joking about someones career like that just wasn’t okay. Even Carmilla understood that.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I guess I forgive you. Or I wouldn’t say forgive but I’ll let this one slide…for now” Carmilla looked at her extremely confused. Why was the girl next to her letting this slide. She made her lose an opportunity for a job. Not that she had a chance anyway seeing that Mother probably tore her apart like she did with all the other interviews. If anyone would have put her career on the line like she had done that to her she would make their life living hell. Laura kept surprising her and what was surprising her the most was her patient with her. All the other girls always left and here she was, letting something so big as this slide. 

“But why?” Carmilla finally asked.

“Because I got the job.” Laura said with a proud smile on her face.

“Wait… what?!” Carmilla exclaimed in shock. 

“Yup, you heard me!” Laura answered with a satisfied nod of her head. 

“But how?! My mother never hires new people!” Carmilla said in disbelief.

“Well, I’ll tell you all about it in a second. First, I would love to be introduced to William. Where is he hiding?” She questioned as she looked around. Carmilla tensed up for a second. She never let new people in her life meet William. It took her weeks to even let Will meet him. She wouldn’t say she wanted him for herself, more that she was overprotective. Or both actually. Plus, William never liked people, except from her. Will hated William and William hated Will for example. But seeing how she had fooled Laura it was only fair that she got to meet the little fellow. 

“Yea…sure. I’ll go get him. But I was to warn you first. He doesn’t like people, well except me.” She explain and she stood up and started looking around the apartment. 

“William, where are you hiding?” She said in a cooed voice. Suddenly a black cat came rushing towards her and started nuzzling against her legs. 

“Hey handsome!” Carmilla said with a smile as she lifted him up. “Gosh William, you’ve gotten heavy!” She said a bit shocked and laughed at how the cat looked back at her, a bit annoyed. Sometimes she wondered if he actually understood her, it wouldn’t surprise her seeing how much time she had spent talking to him. On the couch, Laura was smiling at the two. Carmilla was acting so cute with her cat, now nuzzling him face doing a polar bear kiss. Laura just couldn’t help to hold back a smile. Carmilla always had her guard up, but with William she clearly let her guard down and Laura was so happy to finally got to see this part of her. Carmilla turned her head and her eyes locked with Laura’s. Laura was still smiling and Carmilla got butterflies in her stomach over how beautiful she looked. Suddenly she realised how she’d acted and she cleared her throat, trying to seem unfazed over what Laura had just witnessed. 

“Well, this is William. William, say hello to Laura.” Carmilla said as she sat down on the couch with the cat in her lap.

“Hey, little guy.” Laura said soothingly, trying not to scare the little furry cat. She reached her arm out, and Carmilla knew what was coming. She would be too eager to pet him and he would run off into her room. But to her surprise, Laura didn’t reach over to pet him. She just put her hand in front of his face, letting the cat have sniff of her hand. William started sniffing her, looking really unsure. The cat looked at Laura and Laura looked at William with kindness in her eyes and he let his tongue stroke over her hand, which made Laura giggle. The cat them proceeded to curl up in her lap, letting Laura pet her. Saying that Laura looked proud was an understatement.

“Wow… I’ve never seen him like anyone, like not even my brother.” Carmilla said in shock, looking at the pair in disbelief. 

“Well, I’m good with animals.” Laura answered with a smile and a shoulder shrug as she petted the cat which made him start purring.  
“Everyone says that, but you’re the first one who actually succeeded…” She took a sip of her champagne and let out a chuckle.

“What?” Laura asked, which made the cat look up at his owner. 

“No, just… you keep surprising me” She answered with another chuckle as she examined her glass. 

“Well, I’m pretty awesome.” Laura stated simply as she went back to petting the cat, which made Carmilla let out a tiny laugh. 

“So, tell me. I’m still curious about how you got the job.” The raven haired woman said as she turned to face Laura. She let down the cat from her lap and took up her glass of champagne before starting.   “Well, the interview went to hell. She humiliated me and I almost started crying.”   “Sounds like something my mother would do…but how…”

“Well, when she told me in a stern voice to get out of her office something happened. I turned around and yelled at her.” She answered with a chuckle.   “You yelled at her?!” Carmilla said in shock. To say that she was impressed, and extremely shocked, wasn’t nearly enough to justify her reaction. Not even she had the balls to yell at her mother.

“Yea, I didn’t really plan that. I basically said that she was a horrible person and she doesn’t make people feel safe and that yes, even though the newspaper is about telling the truth, it’s also about how you make people feel safe. And I told her, or yelled at her that that was not one of her “traits”.” Laura finger quoted. “And I’m sorry if I’m insulting your mom but she is scary!” Laura exclaimed. Carmilla smiled at her and nodded her head in agreement.

“Anyway, after my outburst she threw me out, which is pretty understandable.” She said as she shrugged her shoulders.    “Wait, but I thought you got the job?” Carmilla asked confused as she put her glass down.

“Yes well, here’s the awesome part. When I’m on my way out the receptionist Natalie calls my name and says that the director wants to meet up with me. And I couldn’t believe it. I was just about to go out, probably cry fro a bit and then call you and yell at you saying that I wasn’t coming tonight.” 

Carmilla flinched at that though. “Understandable.”

“I walk back up, this time I actually knock instead of breaking down the door. And when I come in she told me that I had done what she needed. Apparently I had told her the truth and that was exactly what she needed to know. Basically she wanted to see if I was thick skinned. So she offered me the job.” She took another sip of her drink and Carmilla sat shocked for a couple of seconds looking at the blond. Laura caught her shocked glare at her and giggled. 

“I know, I was as surprised as you are.” and let out another giggle.

“I’m just… so surprised by you.” She said in shock.   “How come?” She wondered as she frowned.    “Well… I’ve never met anyone, and I mean anyone including myself, who has yelled at my mother.” She shook her head before continuing. “You have balls cutie, I’m impressed.” She said with a smirk. She held up her glass and looked at Laura.

“Well, let’s make a toast for your forgiveness and you getting the job. And once again, I’m sorry I was an idiot.”   “Oh, I haven’t forgiven you yet, but let’s toast for my job.” And she let out a little “yay” as the glasses clinked together. Carmilla chuckled at the shorter girl. Who knew that this small girl had so much power.

“So, now tell me. Why didn’t you tell me?”   “As I said...I-I thought it would have been funny to see how you would have reacted when you saw my last name on the door. But then as our meet up went on I realised that that wasn’t fair and I wanted to tell you I just didn’t know how…” She admitted shyly. “I just… I don’t know. I just didn’t know how to bring it up after and I don’t know. I promise you thought that I actually felt guiltily.” Carmilla continued.

“huh.” Laura let out

“Why the huh?”   “No, you’re just acting human again. Don’t know how to react to that.” Laura said with a cocky smile.

Carmilla rolled her eyes in amusement “Well, sometimes I actually do show emotions.” 

“I like it.” Laura admitted as she smiled as Carmilla. Carmilla looked into Laura’s eyes, then her pink lips and then into her brown green eyes again. Carmilla licked her lips slowly, feeling the tension rising between them. However she quickly broke eye contact, feeling that the girl in front of her was getting too close to her too fast.

“Well, don’t get to used to it cupcake. I prefer being nonhuman.” She said as she acted nonchalant and crossed her legs. 

“Ah, like a vampire?” Laura teased back.   “What?” She asked confused.   “Well, just thinking about all those vampire books you were reading at the store. I mean seriously who reads twilight.” Laura snorted before letting out a chuckle.

“Hey, those books are actually really underrated! I mean yea, the movies was a poor interpretation of the book, but they are alright.” Carmilla argued back.

“It just so funny that you read so much literature and then you also have this geeky side.” Laura teased.

“I’m not a geek, speak for yourself!” She answered in a playful manor. 

“Well, at least I accept it. I think it’s a bit cute though.”   “I’m not cute!”  
“A little bit…”   “No.”   “Tiny bit?”   “No.”   “Mega mini tiny” Laura playfully said with a hushed voice, showing Carmilla with her fingers the size of her tinyness. Carmilla laughed and nudged her shoulder.

“Stop it, I’m not.” She said as she continued laughing at how silly the blond was acting. 

Laura suddenly noticed how close they had gotten. Carmilla’s shoulder was touching hers lightly, skin to skin. Laura felt her heart beat faster. She hadn’t even realised them leaning closer into one another. Laura felt a blush creeping up on her cheeks and she felt her mouth go dry. They had never been this close before and she didn’t know how to react.  
Carmilla had also noticed their closeness and she didn’t really know how to react to it. It would be weird if she just jumped back to her end of the couch again. She liked being close to Laura, she liked her smooth skin against hers, she liked the way she smelled. She liked Laura. “Omg… I like Laura…” Carmillas thought as her eyes widened and she started feeling her heartbeat quicken. She hadn’t liked anyone in a long long time. She suddenly flinched at Laura’s touch instead of leaning closer as before and sat up straight from the couch. She took a sip of her champagne, trying to calm herself down.  
Laura felt the quick change in Carmilla and felt slightly hurt. She liked Carmilla, even though she was annoying most of the time there was something about her that pulled her in. And she thought Carmilla felt the same but apparently, well she didn’t know. She was so confused by her.

“Are you okay?” Laura asked looking concerned at the woman next to her. 

“Mhm” Carmilla answered, forgetting she had champagne in her mouth and almost spat it out. She put her hand over her mouth and nodded at Laura, feeling slightly embarrassed. “I’m just thinking that maybe we should get going. We don’t want to be too late.” Carmilla said, trying to recover from her realisation. Laura tightened her lips but said nothing. Carmilla was acting off, there was no way of hiding that.  Laura finally nodded her head, letting it slide and drank up her drink and handing it to Carmilla, who went into the kitchen and put them in the sink.

Laura started putting on her jacket and couldn’t help put feel that there was tension between them. 

“Should we go?” Carmilla asked as she put on her jacket.

“I guess, but are you okay? You’re acting…weird. Even for you.” Carmilla got quite and Laura felt that she was overstepped in her boundary again and that Carmillas bubble was getting thicker.

“I’ll be fine cupcake, let’s just go to the bar and I’ll buy you one of those fruity drinks or whatever you like.” Carmilla said simply. 

“Hey, you can’t call them whatever. They are the best drinks ever!” Laura said in a playful tone, trying to lighten the tension. 

Carmilla smiled at the girl, being thankful for her wonderful skills of saving situations. 

“Well, they can’t compete with a fine glass of red wine.” Carmilla said with a smirk.  
“But you can’t compare them. That’s like comparing a kid with a sophisticated adult. Wine clearly being the sophisticated adult.” She said, pretending to be frustrated. 

“Well cupcake, thats just how the world works.” Carmilla said, still with a smirk plastered on her lips. They looked at each other for a couple seconds and smile at one another, both happy with the tension being gone. They said farewell to William and started walking towards the bar.

——- 

When they arrived at the bar, Laura realised she had no idea why this was a private party and what kind of event this was. 

“Hey Carm? Why is it a private event?” Laura asked just before entering. Carmilla frowned at her new nickname, she had never had a nickname so close to her actual name before. She liked it though and decided not to comment on it.

“It’s actually Will’s belated birthday party.” She answered simply.

“What?! Why didn’t you tell me? I didn’t bring a present!” Laura exclaimed.

“You’ll be fine sundance, it was months ago anyway, plus he’s not expecting anything.” She answered as she opened the door to Laura motioning her to get inside. 

“Okay as long as you say so.” Laura muttered as she walked inside. 

The bar was filled with people, however it wasn’t as much people as there usually was, but there was still enough people by the bar to make it almost impossible to walk through. Laura caught a glimpse of Will and she saw that he waved at them, signalling them to come over to his table. Laura got a bit nervous, she knew who Will was but she had never talked to him. But then Carmilla put her hand on her back leading her forward towards the table and Laura felt herself relax by her touch. 

“Hey kitty! Who’s this?” Will said as they started sitting down.

“Kitty?” Laura asked in both confusion and amusement as she looked at both Will and Carmilla.

“Ignore him, he’s being a dork.” Carmilla answered as she rolled her eyes.

“She’s just a little kitten, thinking she’s so cool and all.” Will answered with a snicker.

“Calm it dofus. Do you want anything at the bar?” She asked, he shook his head and she looked over to Laura. “One of those fruity drinks right?”   “Yea, that’ll be great. Wait let me just get my walle-“   “First drinks on me.” She said with a smirk and Laura felt herself melt. She nodded and Carmilla left in the sea of people. And she realised she had left her alone with Will. The coolest guy at University and the nerves came back. 

“So, what was your name?” He asked again, crossing his arms and resting them against the wooden table.

“Oh, right. I forgot! I’m Laura! And happy belated birthday” She smiled at him and shook his hand.

“Will. Thank you! So, we went to the same university right? Kirsch has talked about you” He said as he took a sip of his beer.  
“He has?” Laura asked shocked. 

“Yea, you helped him study and in return you got to go to parties. Smart move.” He said as he put down his beer. “So, how did the interview go?”

“Wait, how do you know about that?” She asked frowning at him in confusion.

“I’m your stalker.” He said in a creepy voice.

“Okaaaay…Well, mr. stalker you are an excellent stalker.”   “Thank you, I try.” They both started laughing and Will shook his head before continuing. “No, but kitten over there told me about it. She said you had a interview with our mother, that’s all I know.”

“Wait, she talked about me?” She asked, once more confused.

“Yea she does, she maybe seems like a cool cat but she’s actually just a kitten.”   “Hey, stop talking behind my back imbecile.” Carmilla said as she handed Laura her drink.

“Calm down sis, just talking to your girl here. No bad intentions.” Both Laura and Carmilla stiffened at him calling her her girl. Neither really knew how to react to that, nothing had happened between them yet and Laura didn’t even know if Carmilla liked her.

Carmilla cleared her throat before changing the subject. “Well, did she tell you how the interview went?” 

“She was just about too before you interrupted us.” He said in a mocking tone which made Carmilla roll her eyes. “Go on.”   “Well…” Laura felt a bit nervous now when both eyes were on her. “First off, no offence but your mother is scary.” Which made Carmilla smirk and Will throw his head back laughing. “Secondly, I got the job.” This made Will’s laughter sober up directly.

“You what?” He asked shocked.

“I got the job…” She repeated, looking nervously at Carmilla nodded at her to go on.

“I…I really didn’t think I would get it, because well the interview didn’t go as planned and she got mad and-“   “What do you mean not as planned?” Will asked.

“She yelled at her.” Carmilla said before taking a sip.

“You what?!” He exclaimed in even more shock. “You? You yelled at our mother? You’re like what 5,3?” He asked.

“5,2 actually. Not that size matters.” She said as she took the straw and started drinking.

“No of course not but you… she is like hardcore. I didn’t know you were that hardcore, I’m impressed.” He said as he nodded his head and looked at Carmilla. 

“So you yelled at her then what?” 

“I’ll be right back, just gonna go say hi to Kirsch.” Carmilla excused herself and left before Laura could continue. She felt that as fast as they got into the bar Carmilla had started acting more like how she was before. Her guard was up and it made feel a bit sad, it felt somehow like she was avoiding her, but maybe it was just in her head.

“Well, I thought my career was screwed forever, but she called me back up and said I got the job. She said I had told her the truth and that was exactly what she was looking for. So yeaaa. I got the job.” She said with a satisfied smile.

“High five on that!” He highfived her and she tried to hide the grimace of pain. Carmilla and Kirsch joined them and Kirsch met Laura with a hug, which surprised both Carmilla and the short blond. 

The gang continued to talk about nothing and everything. And Carmilla started to loosen up after a while, teasing, laughing and even talking a lot more than she usually did. The night went on and the music got louder and people got drunker. The dance floor started to fill up with people, or it wasn’t really a dance floor but people started dancing anyway. Laura wouldn’t say she was drunk but she could feel the alcohol in her system. However, both Will and Kirsch seemed to be extremely drunk, laughing like maniacs and clapping their hands. Laura smiled at the two, they had such a bromance going on.  
Will had been offered so many shots that she clearly understood why he was drunk. People kept on popping up with drinks and congratulating him.  
Carmilla on the other hand was hard to read. But sometimes, Laura noticed, she would stutter on her words which she usually never did. Always speaking in a clear and sophisticated manner. So she figured that she was too a bit tipsy. 

“I just got to go to the toilet! I’ll be right back.” Laura said. The guys didn’t even seem to hear her but Carmilla turned to her and nodded her head. Smiling at her. Laura smiled back, but feeling silly over smiling at going to the toilet, she quickly left. 

When she was on her way back to the table she suddenly felt a hand grip her wrist. She quickly turned around, startled, but was met by the tall woman who was smiling at her. 

“Danny! I’m sorry I totally forgot that you were coming!” Laura exclaimed as she hugged her.   “It’s okay. I knew I’d run into you.” She answered with a giggle. Laura looked at Danny suspiciously. 

“Are you drunk?” She asked uncertain.

“Pfff, no!” Danny laughed, her body swinging from side to side. Laura laughed at her friend for acting so silly. 

“Yes, you are.” Laura said with a smile and eye roll. Clearly amused.

“Pff, yea maybe…. You’re pretty Laura.” Danny said, suddenly becoming very serious. Laura was taken a bit aback by her random comment, but she always appreciated a compliment.

“Oh, well…thank you! So are you!” She said over exaggerated as she swung her arm. However, Danny looked quite serious but she quickly went back to being a ditzy drunk. 

“So, wanna dance?” The red head asked with a big grin on her face.

“Actually, I was thinking about going back to my table! You can come if you want too.” Laura invited as she pointed to her table.

“No, lets dance!” Danny said, pulling her in into her embrace. Laura frowned and pushed herself off Danny.

“Danny, no I really don’t feel like dancing.” She stated again, trying to be more firm with the drunk girl.

“Come oooon, you’re no fun!” Danny whined.

“I’m…fun. I guess. But no I really don’t feel like dancing.” Danny started trying to pull her towards the dance floor and it was hard to break loose from the giants girl grip. Suddenly she heard a voice behind her.

“Hey, I’m sorry but I don’t want to interrupt. But I think that the girl clearly said she didn’t want to dance.” Carmilla said as she raised her eyebrows at Danny unimpressively. Danny frowned at Carmilla and let go of Laura’s wrist.

“Well, who are you?” Danny asked annoyed. 

“Uhuh, this could only end badly.” Laura thought.

“Non of your business. However, maybe you should respect a girl when she says she doesn’t want to dance. I didn’t know that cavemen were invited.” Carmilla said with a evil smirk as she took a sip of her wine.

“Carmilla, come on. Be nice.” Laura said sternly, putting her hand on her arm. Hoping it would calm her down a bit.

“Wait? THIS is Carmilla?!” Danny asked, shocked and irritated.

“I didn’t know I was this famous. But yes I am Carmilla, take a picture, it lasts longer.” She said with a smirk on her face, clearly loving this. Laura nudged Carmilla and she looked at her her face expression clearly saying “What, I’m just having a bit of fun.” Which made Laura roll her eyes in irritation. 

Danny stood watching the two and felt her heart sink a bit. Even though the look Laura had given her wasn’t maybe the nicest, there was still something between the two.

“Eum Laura, why are you hanging out with such a bitch?” She asked with a frown. 

“Hey now, both of you calm down!” Laura said, stepping in front of Carmilla a bit, trying to calm the two women. 

“Well, at least I’m not a seven foot troll.” She said with a smirk on her lips as she crossed her arms, her drink still in her hand.

“You little-“   “Danny, Carmilla! Calm down! You guys are acting like high school girls, both of you!” Laura raised her voice at the two. Carmilla clearly wasn’t helping the situation and Danny was getting redder and redder in her face and breathing heavily. She was mad. Furious even.

“Laura” She said loudly, causing Laura to look at her. “From now on I don’t think you should hang out with Carmilla, she seems to have a bad influence on you.” 

Laura widened her eyes at the taller girl. “Excuse me?” She said, now also irritated. 

“You heard me, I don’t think you should hang out with her.” She said again, trying to convince her.

“Who are you to decide who I should hang out with?” Laura questioned, feeling herself gripping her knuckled tightly together in anger.

“Well, of course I can’t decide. But come on, look at her. First of all how she dresses, she looks like a biker girl. Secondly, she has an awful personality. You should just hang out with us instead. Your real friends.”

Laura felt herself boiling over. If it was something she couldn’t handle it was this. People deciding how to live her life. Not after her father. She couldn’t handle it and she felt that if this continued she would probably get so mad she would start crying. 

“Danny, excuse me but you are being ridiculous. First of all, you are judging a book by its cover and that is something I hate. I really thought better of you. Secondly, you don’t know her. You don’t know that she is a really funny person actually, she’s really smart and yea she can be a mean sometimes. But she is someone who makes me happy and I like being around her. You have NO right to tell me who to hang out with! You can’t control me. ” She spit the words out like fire. Laura saw fire and Carmilla was shocked at how the blond went from bubbly to angry in seconds. She realised that Danny had hit a nerve and she took a step forward and put her hand on Laura’s lower back, showing her that she was supporting her. 

“Laura, I’m not trying to control you! I’m just helping you make better decisions-“   “No, you know what Danny! I don’t need more people controlling me in my life. Yes, I might not be tall and confident like you and I might not be as confident, straightforward and sophisticated as Carmilla. But I am doing just fine on my own and I don’t need ANOTHER person in my life telling me what to do! Let me live my life and you live yours!” She basically screamed out the last part as she felt tears falling down her face. Her face crunched up and ran back into the bathroom.

“Laura!” Danny yelled after her, starting to walk after her but Carmilla took hold of her wrist, stopping her.

“Leave her alone, she needs some time to calm down.” She said as she looked up at the taller girl. What she really wanted to do was punch her in the gut for hurting Laura, but she knew that wouldn’t help the situation. She had to stay calm…for Laura.

“Who are you to tell me what to do?” Danny spat out.

“Just leave her okay?” Carmilla said sternly. Danny looked at her before she softened up and nodded at the shorter girl. 

“Yea… I should get going. I don’t feel like dancing anymore anyway.” Danny answered, sounding defeated and after that she turned her heel and was on her way out the door.

In the bathroom, Laura was trying to stop her tears. She had stopped shaking with anger now but the tears just kept on coming. She dried her eyes one more time, trying not to mess up the mascara. But she already felt that that was a lost case. Maybe she overreacted she thought, but she couldn’t help it. It was too much of a sensitive topic for her. 

Suddenly she heard a knock on the bathroom door. “I’ll be out in a minute!” She yelled back. 

“Hey cupcake, it’s just me. Come out.” Carmilla answered through the door. 

Laura shook her head, trying to calm herself. She took one a deep breath before opening the door. Carmilla greeted her with a sad smile and she looked so beautiful and Laura suddenly felt very self-conscious. She must be looking like a mess next to the beauty that was Carmilla 

“Well cupcake, this is the third time tonight that you impress me and I’ll tell you one thing. I’m not easily impressed.” Laura let out a chuckle and and shook her head.

“You don’t have to-“   “I’m being serious Laura. First my mother hiring you. I mean… now I clearly understand a 110% why she did that. You’re extremely strong. Secondly, William liked you and he likes no one. Like seriously.” Laura couldn’t help but smile and she also noticed that while she had been looking down at the floor Carmilla had gotten awfully close to her. She looked into her beautiful eyes and she saw how the woman in front of her reached her hand to her face, placing a piece of hair behind her ear. Laura felt herself blush again. “And thirdly, you stood up from yourself. And there is nothing more I respect that when people stand up for themselves. You’re braver than you think.” Carmilla smiled kindly at her however her eyes still looked a bit worried. 

“Thank you… I really ended that right now…”

“No problem sundance.” Carmilla looked at Laura’s lips again and then into her eyes. The tension was rising again, this time however Laura broke eye contact feeling that she was looking like a mess. “Let’s leave and do something fun instead.” Carmilla said as Laura went to the mirror and started fixing herself up. 

“But it’s your brothers birthday party.” Laura stated as she looked at Carmilla through the mirror, who was leaning against the bathroom door. 

“So? This party blows anyway. I thought we could go to my place, drink some good wine instead of this cheap wine and look at the stars? I mean if you would want too of course.” Carmilla asked, sounding a bit insecure by the end. 

Laura smiled at her through the mirror. “I would like that a lot actually.” and Carmilla face lit up with a smile.


	10. Chapter 10

The reader and the talker.

Disclaimers: I do not own any of the rights to the characters from Carmilla.

Chapter 10:

The night wasn’t as cold as Laura had expected. Maybe it was the alcohol keeping her warm, or the anger that was still rushing through her body. She didn’t really know.  
It was a cool evening, no wind was blowing and Laura’s jacket was actually making her a bit too warm. Spring was coming and she could feel it in the air. Suddenly she felt a hand grab hers and she turned her head and looked at Carmilla, who was still looking forward towards the streets. Laura smiled a small smile when she saw Carmilla also smiling. The taller woman was very confusing but sometimes she would show affection in the smallest ways, and that was all Laura needed. Laura squeezed Carmillas hand, only to have it squeezed back. Laura’s small smile turned into a grin.

“If you smile that big your lips might fall off.” Carmilla teased her as she looked over at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, I think I’m allowed to have a grin after the events of the night” Laura answered simply, still smiling at Carmilla, who smiled back before looking at the street ahead of them.

“True” 

“By the way, thanks for coming up to us when Danny and I were talking. Even though that maybe wasn't the nicest or most civilised way of handling the situation I really appreciated you having my back.”Laura admitted as she placed a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

“Anytime creampuff. I saw you guys and you didn’t look pleased. I just wanted to check that you were doing alright. Plus, you had been gone for a while.” She said simply as she shrugged her shoulders.

Laura blushed at the thought of Carmilla being worried for her and she looked at the woman next to her. She couldn’t help herself and she quickly gave her a kiss on the cheek. Carmilla opened her mouth a bit in shock and gazed her fingers where Laura had kissed her. She felt a faint blush creeping up on her cheeks and she turned to look at Laura who was blushing furiously, looking anywhere but at her. Carmilla chuckled at how cute she was being.

“You’re such a dork” Carmilla said as she shook her head in amusement. 

“Hey, that’s not something you say to a girl who just kissed you.” Laura said, still slightly embarrassed. Carmilla stopped in her tracks and stopped Laura and looked at her. Laura could feel herself blushing even harder, the taller woman looked at her with soft eyes and a smirk plastered on her lips.

“That’s not how you really kiss a girl though…” Carmilla said as she took hold of her hip and pulled her in. They were face to face now, inches away and Laura could feel Carmillas breath on her lips. She looked up at the woman’s brown eyes who had turned soft, however she was still smirking.  
Carmilla couldn’t help but smirk at the girl in her arms. Maybe it was the alcohol in her system that was making her braver, but somehow it felt right to kiss her. She wanted to kiss her. She bit her lip and started to lean in. 

“LAURA!” 

Both girls quickly pulled away from each other, Carmillas hands leaving her hip. Laura felt extremely flustered while Carmilla simply seemed annoyed. They turned towards the sound and saw Danny coming running towards them with big steps. Carmilla’s eyes went cold.

“Great, just great.” Carmilla said under her breath.

“Danny, what are you doing? I thought you went home?” Laura asked, still flustered but a bit annoyed at the redhead for ruining their moment. 

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry that I made you cry. I really didn’t mean to…” Danny apologised, looking at Laura and then down at the ground, feeling embarrassed. 

Carmilla let out an annoyed sigh while Laura didn’t really know how to react. “Danny, I know you didn’t mean to. But I’m still mad and honestly, I don’t feel like talking to you right now. We can talk later this week I guess, but for now can you please take a step back? Just let me breath for a second okay?” Laura said, trying to keep calm. She was still annoyed at Danny, but she didn’t want to get angry again, especially since she was spending a really good time with Carmilla.

“That’s fair…I understand” Danny said defeated. “And you” She turned pointing at Carmilla. “Don’t hurt her.” It was defiantly a threat. 

Carmilla narrowed her eyes at the tall redhead in irritation “Well Xena, I don’t think you have the right to say anything after the little trick you pulled tonight.” She said coldly. 

Danny was taken aback, but she knew deep down for once Carmilla was right. “Fine, whatever. Laur, I’ll talk to you later okay?” She said, her eyes looking somewhat worried. She was afraid of losing Laura, she really felt like they had something, like a connection. She knew she had overstepped. But at the same time she really didn’t like the brunette in front of her. There was something about her that was off. 

“Yea, I’ll talk to you later Danny.” Laura said after a while, still not knowing how to feel over the whole situation. She was still annoyed at her, but she was mostly annoyed at her timing to be honest. 

“Yea, see you.” Danny said defeated as she turned her heel and started walking away from the two. 

They stood there for a while, not really knowing what to say. Carmilla looked over at Laura, who seemed to be in another world, lost in thoughts.

“Hey” Carmilla said, making Laura snap out of her state and turning to face her. “Are you alright?” She asked, looking worried at the shorter blond.

“I mean…yea I guess. I just, I don’t like fighting with my friends…” She said, drifting off again. Carmilla looked at her a bit worried. She didn’t like seeing Laura sad, not one bit. The bubbly blond could get on her nerves sometimes, but she clearly preferred her when she was smiling than having a hurt look on her face. 

“Let’s go. The sooner we get home the faster I can show you some real wine.” Carmilla said, a small smile creeping up on her lips as she gently took hold of Laura’s hand again. 

Laura looked at Carmilla and smiled at her. She had never guessed that Carmilla would ever have this side, gentle, caring and just so protective in a way. It was such a huge difference from the woman she had met at the bookstore. “Yea, I can’t wait” She smiled a genuine smile and Carmillas smile widened when she saw Laura smile back at her.

 

After coming home, the two was greeted by excited but tired William who came up stroking himself against their legs. And to Carmillas surprise, he had gone to Laura first. She shouldn’t be jealous but still, William always greeted her first. Carmilla proceed by fetching the wine and some blankets.

“Why the blankets?” Laura frowned as she looked at Carmilla with confusion.

“I told you we were gonna watch the stars. I thought we could go to my secret place.” She said with a small smirk on her face. 

Laura looked suspicious at the brunette. “Is this the part where you take me to your dungeon and I’m never seen again?” She teased. 

“Yea, I’m surprised you finally figured it out” Carmilla teased back. 

Carmilla took her hand, leading her out to the stairway and as they started walking up the stairs Carmilla turned around and looked at Laura “You have to close your eyes.” Carmilla said with a hint of excitement. Laura couldn’t help but smile at her. She had never seen Carmilla excited over anything before.

“Okay, but I’m extremely clumsy, so if I fall I’ll blame you.” 

“I won’t let you fall cupcake.” Carmilla answered. Laura looked at her for a second, a bit worried over the thought of going up the stairs blinded but she trusted Carmilla. She didn’t know how, seeing how Carmilla had acted towards her in the past. But Carmilla had a look in her eyes that really showed that she wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

“Okay…” Laura said after a while of silence. She closed her eyes and felt Carmilla squeeze her hand again, reassuring her that nothing was going to happen. 

After some difficulty walking up the stairs blinded and with some missteps Laura finally heard Carmilla say “One more step cupcake and then we’re there.” Laura nodded back. “I’m gonna let go of your hand now, I’ll be right back! But whatever you do don’t open your eyes okay?” 

“Okay, don’t be gone too long though.” Laura said, a hint of worry in her voice over the thought of being left blind in a staircase. 

Laura heard Carmilla walk off and suddenly she heard a sound that reminded her of a big door being pushed opened. Carmilla took hold of her hand again and led her outside. 

“You can open your eyes now” Carmilla whispered in her ear, her breath hitting her ear which gave her shivers. 

Laura opened her eyes and gasped. They were standing on a rooftop, with the whole city lighting up in front of them. You could hear the city below them, the cars passing by, people laughing drunkly on the streets. In front of them was a old couch covered in plastic, probably to protect it from the rain which Carmilla was taking off at the moment. Laura looked up at the sky and was left in awe. The stars were shining so bright against the dark sky. 

“Carmilla…this is amazing!” Laura exclaimed finally looking at her. Carmilla who was opening the bottle of wine looked up at her and smiled at her.

“Yea, it’s my favourite place to go actually. Just to calm down. I usually never show people this place but I figured you needed to calm down a bit” She answered with a shrug of her shoulders. Before Laura could answered a pop was heard as she opened the wine and started pouring it into the two glasses. 

Laura was shocked at how caring Carmilla was being towards her. She was letting her in to her world pretty quickly and Laura was trusting the woman in front of her more and more. She didn’t know why, but there was something special with how she treated her and looked at her. 

Carmilla sat down and motioned her to do the same. Laura sat down next to her and Carmilla handed her the glass. There was silence for a while, the women enjoying looking at the stars and enjoying the silence. Carmilla loved it up here, she could hear the city roaming under her, thinking about all the lives in the city. All the individuals living their lives, so many different thoughts, situations and feelings. And that somehow we are all connected. Also, Carmilla loved looking at the stars, it made her feel so small against the universe. She loved the combination of the two. 

She was brought out of her thoughts when she felt Laura shift beside her so she was facing her.

“Hey Carm… I wanted to thank you for tonight. For caring I guess. It means a lot for me. What Danny said really hit a nerve and I don’t know… Thank you.” Laura said, blushing slightly.

“No problem cupcake, plus I had fun messing with Danny for a bit.” She answered smirking at the blond.

“Yea I saw that.” She chuckled “You really don’t like Danny do you?” 

“Was it obvious?” She answered with a grin on her face which made Laura laugh and nudge her shoulder.

“Oh stop it! You guys did not go along!” She said still laughing which made Carmilla laugh.

“Well, she was being annoying plus she wasn’t being nice towards you. I always tell people what I think. I’m sorry but your friend is an imbecile.” Carmilla said as she took a sip of her wine. 

“Don’t say that. She’s really nice! Maybe not tonight, but she’s a good friend of mine.” Laura said as she frowned slightly at the brunette. 

“Well, she hasn’t proven herself yet. But I’ll believe you the day she does” She said, looking out over the city.

There was silence for a while, both just enjoying each other company. After a while Laura started chuckling which made Carmilla turn to her with a raised eyebrow.

“What?” She asked as she looked at the smiling woman next to her.

“I just, I think it’s funny don’t you?” She answered as she giggled a bit. Carmilla frowned in confusion. “I mean, who would have thought that you and me would be sitting here watching the stars together drinking wine after that encounter at the book store.” She continued still giggling from time to time. Carmilla smiled at Laura because she was right, it was quite a turn of events.

“Well” Carmilla started, as she placed her hand on Laura’s tight, which made Laura’s eyes widen for a moment. “I’m glad it happened. I thought you were just an innocent, bubbly girl when I started to get to know you. But you turned out to be something else.” Carmilla finished as she smiled at her, squeezing her tight. Laura looked at the dark eyes looking back at her and swallowed. 

However Carmilla was confused. Really confused. She knew she liked Laura, but earlier that night she couldn’t even be close to her. Now all she wanted to do was kiss her. Usually she always went after what she wanted but now she just didn’t know how to. However, her hand was still on her leg. And as Laura had said the first time they met at the bar. Baby steps.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how it’s gonna work out with you working for my mother.” Carmilla continued, breaking the eye contact again. 

“Yea, I guess” She said as she took another sip of her wine. Carmilla was right, there was a huge difference between cheap and expensive wine. “I mean, she’s still hardcore I guess?” 

Carmilla nodded “I think she’s gonna push you extra hard now. You’ll probably dislike her even more. But she will do it because she wants you to be the best. Trust me.” Carmilla said as she turned her entire body towards Laura, sitting crossed legged on the couch. 

“Yea, I am familiar with that…” Laura said as she pressed her lips together tightly.

“I’m guessing your father, seeing from what happened earlier tonight.” Carmilla said, tilting her head slightly. 

Laura fidgeted with her hands in her lap, not meeting Carmillas eyes. “Yea, I mean I love my father and we have a great connection. But he’s just so… I don’t know. He wants me to be the best, which is fine! But he pushes me a bit too hard sometimes and tries to lead me instead of letting me find my own way you know?” She finished uncertain as she quickly looked at Carmilla before she looked back into her lap.

“Cupcake” She said as she took hold of her hand. “You are ridiculous and headstrong.” She said with a huge smile on her face as she nudged her arm. “He can’t be anything but proud of you.” The smile still on her face as she looked at Laura in amazement. Laura smiled timidly as she pushed some fallen hair behind her ear. 

“You know you don’t need to say those things right?” Laura said, looking at Carmillas hand in hers.

“I know. But I want you to understand how amazing you are. I haven’t known you that long, for a couple weeks now I think. But seriously creampuff, you’re special.” She continued as she squeezed her hand which made Laura look up and smile at her. 

“I…I… thank you.” Laura said timidly. However her facial expression changed and she got a serious look on her face as she looked at Carmilla.  “I know you’re not one to talk about yourself. I mean… your pretty reserved. But I haven’t heard anything about your father. I’m just a bit curious.” She knew that she overstepped when she saw Carmilla sit up straight and her hand going back to her own lap. But she wanted to know more about her and even though it would take time. 

“Well, I haven’t heard anything about your mother.” Carmilla said back, but not in the harsh tone that Laura was used to when Carmilla got defensive. 

“Well…” Laura started, looking out over the city. “My parents and I were in a car accident when I was a kid. Dad and I made it out fine, but mom. Well, she didn’t make it…” She finished, her voice had gotten thicker as she spoke as she held back tears. Carmilla looked at her with saddened eyes. The moment she had met Laura for the first time she thought that she was the kind of girl that got everything on a silver plate. That she had just flowed through life. But the more she got to know her the more she respected the girl in front of her. 

She took hold of her hand again which made Laura turn to look at her with glanced eyes. “I’m sorry that you had to go through that Laura.” Laura’s eyes widened at the sound of her name. She had never heard the brunette use her name like that. Ever.

“Yea, me too…” Laura said and then Carmilla pulled her closer. She pulled her against her chest, suddenly feeling the need of protecting her from everything evil in the world. She didn’t want to see more pain in the girls eyes. She just wanted her to smile and be happy. She wrapped her arms around Laura, letting her get comfortable in her embrace, and they stayed like that. With Carmilla holding Laura, stroking her hair as Laura was cuddled against her chest. Laura immediately felt more relaxed. She could smell Carmillas scent, she could hear her heartbeat, she felt her strong arm around her and her hand stroking her hair. Somehow she felt at home, which was odd seeing they had never been this close before. 

“I can’t remember my father.” Carmilla said after a long time of silence. Laura stayed lying on her chest, feeling that Carmilla didn’t want her to look at her when she talked about her father. “We… welll… He left my Mother before Will was born. After that, my mother had a lot of problem financially and had to take other ways of getting money. It ended up with social services taking us from her.” She sounded distanced as she talked, almost like it wasn’t her that had gone through everything. But Laura figured that she couldn’t really remember exactly what happened because she was so young. Laura didn’t really know what to say. It didn’t really feel like Carmilla was done talking just yet. Carmilla took a deep breath and sipped her wine before continuing. “Will was 5 and I was 6 when Elizabeth came to adopt us and after that she’s been our mother. We’ve never clicked me and her…but I’m still grateful for what she did.” She finished, looking up at the stars. Laura pushed herself upwards so that she was resting on Carmilla’s shoulder, joining her in her star gazing.

“I’m sorry for what you went through, but I’m happy Elizabeth came for you guys. It’s not usual for siblings being adopted.” She said after awhile. She felt Carmilla nod her head.  
They stayed like that, talking about the stars, the people who were spread all over the city in front of them, they pointed at where people they knew lived, Laura showed her her apartment. It went on like that until sunrise as the sun started rising in front of the Laura let out a long yawn. 

“I should be heading back.” Laura finally said as she sat up and stretched her back. Carmilla nodded and did the same, almost looking cat like at how bendable her back was.

“I think I’ll sit here for a while more. Do you know your way out?” She asked as she stood up, reaching out her hand to Laura to she help her up.

“Well, even though I was blinded the whole way I think I’ll figure it out.” Laura said with a smirk on her face as she took hold of Carmillas hand. Carmilla pulled her up quickly, making Laura bump into her.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Laura said flustered as she looked up at Carmilla. Carmilla was smiling down at her, holding her hips tightly. 

“You’re really are clumsy aren’t you cupcake?” She said as she chuckled. 

Laura felt another blush creeping up. “I-I- Well, yes I am. But I’ve always been clumsy even as a kid. I mean I remember this one time when I was on my way home and I tripped on a-“ 

Suddenly she felt Carmilla’s lips on hers. Interrupting her. Her eyes opened wide in shock, but as she felt Carmilla pulling her in by her hips she closed her eyes and kissed her back. Her arms wrapping themselves around the taller woman’s neck. Carmilla started kissing her slowly, softly and Laura felt her knees go weak. Laura felt Carmilla’s lips, they were soft, yet rough at the same time. She felt how the taller girls woman’s hands started stroking her sides. She needed to be closer, Laura tilted her head and pulled her in by her neck. She felt Carmillas tongue against hers, she tasted like wine and Laura felt how her her stomach did a flip. She heard how Carmilla’s breath started to quicken as she pulled her in closer. The kiss got deeper, both needing more of one another. However Laura felt that she needed to breath, she pulled back from the kiss and opened her eyes. Carmilla was looking back at her with a huge grin on her face and Laura couldn’t help but smile back and let out a little laugh and Carmilla did the same. Laura pulled back a bit so she could have a better view of the woman in front of her, however they were still locked in their embrace. 

“Wow…you’re a really good kisser.” Laura said after a while, still a bit out of breath. Carmilla let out a chuckle and shook her head at the girl.

“Well, you weren’t so bad yourself sundance.” Carmilla teased back as she grabbed hold of her side, which made Laura giggle. They looked deeply into each other eyes and Laura leaned in giving her a small peck on her lips.

“I should really get going though. I had a great time tonight.” Laura said, still a huge grin on her face.

“Yea me too actually.” Carmilla admitted with a smile. 

They stood like that for a while smiling at one another, kissing each other quickly from time to time. Laura finally shook her head and let out a laugh.

“Carm, I really need to go! I have a paper to write for work about the company to show your mother what my strong sides are. Plus I promised to meet up with LaFontaine and Perry later today and I really need some sleep.” Laura explained.

“Cupcake, do you really have to bring up my mother when we’re kissing. It’s kind of a mood kill.” Carmilla said with a grimace. Which made Laura giggle.

“Well, I had to set you off somehow right?” She said as she pulled away from her and started to put on her jacket. Carmilla sat down on the couch again and wrapped herself up in her blanket. 

“Yea, well it worked.” Carmilla said simply as she snuggled up in her couch. Laura looked at her and couldn’t help but smile, she looked so cute all wrapped up, her hair messy and looking a bit tired.

“I’ll see you around?” Laura asked unsurely.

Carmilla looked up at her and smile reassuringly. “Of course you will.” Laura couldn’t help but grin at her.

“Okay, awesome! See you around!” She said enthusiastically which made Carmilla chuckle at how cute she was.

“Yea” She answered and once again their eyes locked and they smiled at one another. Finally Laura shook her head one more time.

“Okay, stop doing whatever that is! I really need to go now! Bye!” She said and turned and started walking towards the door. 

Suddenly she felt Carmilla turn her around kissing her. Once again she was caught off guard but before she could answer the kiss Carmilla had pulled back smirking at her. “Bye cupcake.” And she turned her heel and went back to her couch.    
Laura started walking down the stairs and she couldn’t stop smiling. The whole way to the apartment she was smiling and she fell asleep with a smile on her face, still thinking about Carmilla. 

 

Laura was woken up by her phone ringing. She started muttering about her stupid phone and answered.

“Hello?” She answered in a sleepy and horsed voice. 

“Hey Laur, it’s LaF. Where are you? Me and Perry have been waiting for you for like fifteen minutes.” They said.

“Oh shit, I overslept! I’ll be there in ten minutes!” Laura said hurriedly as she jumped up from her bed.

“It’s five o’clock in the afternoon. How could you oversleep? Aren’t you the person who has always been up before sunrise?” LaF asked suspiciously. 

“I’ll explain everything when I see you guys okay?” She said, her phone pressed against her shoulder and her ear as she tried to put on her jeans. 

“Sounds good! See you soon!” They said as they hung up.


	11. Chapter 11

Laura opened the cafe doors with a bang, which made all the customers turn their heads and look at her with annoyance. Laura blushed and held up her hand, saying sorry and sorry again as she hurried through the cafe to get to Perry’s and Laf’s table. 

“There you are! We have been waiting for a long time Laura and I got extremely worried when I heard that you had slept till 5 o’clock in the afternoon. Is everything alright? Are you maybe getting a cold?” Perry hurried with her words as Laura finally sat down.

“No, trust me I’m fine” Laura said with a smile on her face. “Actually I haven’t felt this good in a long time.” She continued, her smile broadening. Perry and LaF looked at each other in confusion and they shrugged her shoulders at the red head. 

“I’ll go grab you a coco.” Laf said as they left the two alone.

“How can you feel good? I got a phone call from Danny last night and she informed me that you two had had a bit of a fall out. What happened?” Perry asked with a worried voice.

“Well, we were both a bit tipsy and she said somethings that made me angry, but it’s not a big thing really. I’ll talk to her later in the week and we will solve it. No bigge.” She said as she waved her hand at her. “Besides, we were both tipsy so everything became a bigger problem then, but now when I’ve slept on it, I’ve realised that it wasn’t really that big of a deal.”

Perry, still not convinced nodded her head and decided to let it slide, for now.

“Well, aside from the Danny thing, how come you are feeling so great? Is it because of the job? Are you excited?” They asked as they handed her her coco. 

“Well, I am excited for the job, I have this big article to write for monday, which I haven’t started on yet.” She let out a nervous chuckle. “But I’ll write it tonight. But the actual reason I’m so happy is well… Carmilla kissed me.”

 

Downtown, a very hungover Will stepped through the front door. Carmilla raised her head from her book and smirked at her younger brother.

“I’m guessing someone got lucky last night.” She said with a smirk on her face. Will let out a groan and sat down next to her. 

“No, I passed out on Kirch couch. What a joke of a birthday…but man those shots hit me hard. I haven’t been able to eat all day and my head is killing me.” He said as he buried his face in his hands.

“You know, eating always solves a hangover.” Carmilla said simply as she flipped the page. 

“Not when you puke it up directly after. Trust me I’ve tried.” Will commented through his hands which made Carmilla smirk at him. “Wait a second.” He said as he looked up at her. “Where did you go last night? Last time I saw you you were with that tall chick and Lina.”

  “It’s Laura.”

  “Yeah yeah, you got the memo. What happened? Did you get laid?” He said as he grinned at his older sister. 

“I certainly did not get laid, even if that is non of your business.” She answered aggressively.

  “Wow kitty relax. You’ve never been prude about these kinds of things.” Will was silent for a couple of seconds. “Wait, do you have feelings for her?” Carmilla didn’t answer. She decided to ignore the question and continue reading. 

“Oh my god, you totally do!” Will exclaimed as he jumped up from his seat in bewilderment. “You haven’t had feelings for someone since-“

  “We do NOT bring up her name in this household. Am I clear?” Carmilla said as she clenched her jaw and pointed at him.

“Sorry sorry, whatever jeez. Anyway wow that’s amazing Carmilla I’m so happy for you!… so did you guys kiss?” He teased as he started smooching the air.

“Oh shut up you dog!” She said as she threw her book at him which landed right on his face.

“Ow! Not cool sis! I’m hungover!”  

“Well you don’t look hung over to me” She teased with a smirk. 

“Don’t get so defensive, I’m happy for you. So, I’m guessing you guys kissed. So, when are you going to tell mom that you are dating one of her employes? Talk about drama!”

  “We are not dating. It was one kiss. We will see what happens.” Carmilla said simply, trying to act nonchalant. “And lets not bring up Mother in this, it’s such a buzz kill.”

  “Yeah true…but still. Nice going, I didn’t think she was your type, I mean Elle was defiantly-“  

“What. Did. I. Just. Say.” Carmilla replied through clenched teeth. 

“Shit, sorry. Won’t happen again I promise.” He threw up his hands with his palms towards her. 

“And no, I guess not. But at the same time I’ve never seen anyone look like her. Besides who cares.”  

“Yeah true. Well, I’m in big need of a shower so I’m off.”

  “I can tell.” Carmilla said as she rolled her eyes. Will just huffed at her and left her alone on the couch. 

 

“Wait what?! You guys kissed? But she was so rude towards you!” They said in disbelief. 

 “Well, she’s different when your alone with her. She’s really caring, kind and even funny!” Laura said giggling. Both redheads made faces at each other. “No guys I swear. She’s amazing and smart and-“  

“Wow slow down there! You’ve only known her for a couple of weeks, besides the whole thing about her being a different person when she’s only around you I don’t really like… Remember your ex? You kept on telling us how amazing they was when you guys were together but they was a total buzz kill.” 

“I agree with…They…” Perry said unsurely. You could sense that she wasn’t completely familiar with calling LaF they yet. “It does not matter how kind they are when it is only you and them. You need to be able to bring them places without being embarrassed by their behaviour.”

Laura started to fidget with her hands and wouldn’t meet their eyes. She didn’t want to compare Carmilla with her ex, but some of the things they had said were in fact true.

“Well, I mean…last night I hung out with her, Will and Kirch and she wasn’t acting like RJ alright?” She answered, however her tone of voice sounded a bit hesitant. 

“Well, as long as you’re happy we are happy. Right Perry?” Perry however, was sitting quite with her arms crossed. “Perry!” 

“Fine! I’m just worried. However, I’m always worried…” Perry muttered. 

“So, are you guys dating or what?” They continued. 

“What? Dating? No of course not. Or I don’t think so?” The blond answered as she felt her cheeks go pink, which made LaF smirk.

“So you want to?” 

“What?”  

“Date her?”  

“Well… I mean I don’t know? Maybe? Do we really need to talk about this now? We’ve only kissed and I haven’t heard anything since nor have I contacted her so let’s just drop it.” She said as she took a sip of her coco, trying to hide her blush. 

LaF and Perry both smiled at her and LaF proceeded to talk about a documentary she saw list night.

 

It was nearing 10 o’clock and Laura banged her head against her desk. “Ergh… I should have started this paper earlier.” She mumbled to herself as she reached for another cookie. She was way in over her head. She had to make this paper special, but how do you write a “special” paper about an newspaper company? She took another bite and continued typing. This wasn't however her only problem. She was getting antsy over the fact that she hadn’t heard from Carmilla all day. To come of think of it, neither had she made effort to call or text the brunette. Or she had, but everything she started writing something it just seemed lame. What should she write? “Hey”, “Sup” “Whatya up to?” Everything she had tried to type just sounded stupid. She let out an exasperated sigh and stroked the back of her neck. Carmilla can wait she decided, she had a paper to finish.

 

“So…?” Will started as he looked up at Carmilla from his computer. 

  “So?” She repeated as she continued reading. 

“Have you heard anything from Laura?” 

“Nope.” She said simply.

“Are you worried?”

  “Nope.”  

“Have you thought about why she hasn’t contacted you?”

  “Nope.” She was lying. She had been thinking about it all day. Why hadn’t Laura texted, why haven’t I texted, should I maybe call her? She had been going over these thoughts over and over again in her head. She had even asked William, not that he had given her much help.

“Either you are lying, or you don’t have feelings for her. Which one is it?” 

“Will, just leave me alone I just want to read.”  

“AHA!” He roared. “Avoiding the question I see! So you HAVE been thinking about it!” He said in triumph. 

“Will, just shut up already. I’m trying to read.”

  “Is that a small smile I see on your lips?” He said as he started to creep towards her with a playful smile on his face.

“No.” She answered with no emotion. 

“A little smile?”

  “No.”

  “A tiny smile?”  

“Will I swear I will punch you!” She said as she threw down the book and looked up at him in annoyance.

“Jeez kitty, no need to get your panties in a twist. I was just messing around…plus I’m totally right.” He said with a big grin on his face which made Carmilla roll her eyes. 

“God you’re annoying. I’m going to my room.” She said as she stood up and grabbed the book.

“You do so, but I’m still right.” Which made Carmilla let out a long moan in irritation before slamming the door. 

She sat down on the bed with a huff and William quickly joined her side, stroking her arm.

“I know William he’s right. But what should I do, do I have to contact her? It’s always me who contacts girls. Just for once I want a girl to contact me you know?” The cat looked up at her with empty eyes. “God, you’re no help. You’re just a cat.” William looked annoyed at her and jumped off her bed. “Hey, I’m sorry buddy. Don’t leave.” William jumped up on the chair in front of her and started licking his paws. 

The brunette fell back against her bed and let out a sigh. She was feeling powerless. She wanted to text her but at the same time she didn’t. She just wanted, for once, to not be the one who texted first. But apparently she was doomed to be the one who always had to contact the person first. Suddenly she heard her phone ring and she reached over and squinted at the screen. “Laura/annoying bookstore girl” it read and Carmilla felt a smile creep up on her lips. She hit the answer button. 

“Hello?” Lauras voice said on the other line. 

“Hey cupcake, whats up?” Carmilla face palmed at herself for saying what’s up.

“I’m trying to write this paper but it’s going straight down the rabbit hole.” She sighed. 

“Well, if you ask me, going straight down the rabbit hole means you are going to a really creative place, but I’m guessing you are meaning the opposite.”

“Stop being so literate. And yeah, I have to write a 8 papers report about the company and I’ve only written 4 and I’m out of ideas.”

“Well, what have you written so far?” Carmilla sat up and started petting William, who had decided to come back to bed. 

“Well, just basic stuff I guess. How the name of the company came to be, how it got so successful, how the newspaper handle the great depression. Just boring stuff like that.”  

“Hm, sounds pretty boring if you ask me. Plus, Mother will not be impressed by that, you do realise this right?”

“I knoooooooooow” Laura moaned and Carmilla could hear how she banged her head against her desk. “But I don’t know what to write about a company like this. It’s not like I have a specific topic to go after. It’s too broad and there’s too much to write about. Now my paper just looks like a barf of text.”  

“Don’t you mean a ball of text?”  

“No. A barf. I am barfing at my own writing right now.” Carmilla started chuckling and she could hear Laura doing the same.

“Well cupcake, why don’t you choose a specific topic that interests you. I mean, I don’t think my Mother really wants to read an 8 pages long report about what the company is and how it came to be, she already knows that.”

“Yeah…true.”  

“I think she wants you to write something original that catches her interested. A new set of eyes for the company if I may say so.”

“You are making a lot of good points actually…” Laura mumbled as what sounded like she was scribbling down something. 

“So, was there anything else?” Carmilla asked. Once again face palming at how rude she had just sounded.

“Well, yes or no…” Laura sounded a bit throw off. “I was just calling because, oh I don’t know. To see how you are feeling or like yeah…?” Carmilla smirked at how dorky the blond was acting.

“I’m feeling fine. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m good…”  

“Cupcake?”  

“Yeah…?”

  “Stop being so awkward.” She deadpanned as she chuckled.

“You’re not nice! I was really nervous to call you and then you’re being all teasy and meany!”

“Meany? How’s the grammar going, miss journalist.” She teased again.

“Oh shut up. Now you’re just being unfair!”

  “So, how was your day?” Carmilla continued, not wanting the conversation to end. 

“It was fine really, I slept till five and then I was late to meet LaF and Perry. What about you?” Laura asked as she drew small hearts on her notebook without realising it.

“Wow, you really were tired. Now I actually believe you that you left because you were tired and not because you wanted to get away from me!” She said in an overdramatic voice.

“You’re a dork.”

  “No, I’m not. Well, my day was good. I had to wake up early though because I forgot that I had a phone call for work. We had some shipments that needed to be approved.” She answered simply as she continued to pet William. 

“Ah, the big important business woman that you are!” Laura teased on the other line which made Carmilla smile.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” She chuckled.

“Carmilla?” Laura suddenly sounded extremely serious and Carmilla didn’t like the sound of her voice.

“Laura?” She tried to tease but it felt like her heart had gone up to her throat.

There was a long pause and Carmilla started to fidget with her hands “….What do you work with?” Laura finally said. 

 “Cupcake you scared me! Sounding all serious like that!” She exclaimed.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean too! It’s just that I have no idea what you do and I’ve been wondering and I did ask and you didn’t answer before because of the whole mom thing but now I don’t see a reason for you not to-“

  “Laura, breath.” 

“Sorry.”

  “Well, I own an art gallery downtown.”

“No way!” Laura almost screamed in her ear. 

“Eum… yeah.” She didn’t really know how to respond.

“That’s so cool! What kind of art do you guys have?” Laura asked in excitement. 

“Well, it depends. We sell most of it off and some things we keep of course. Some times we have modern art, sometimes we just have sculptures but mostly paintings.”

  “That’s so cool, it fits you!”  

“What do you mean?”

  “Well, you seem really passionate as a person…so-so I mean yeah.” Carmilla chuckled again at the blond.

“Yea, I do love it.”

  “Oh my god!”

  “What?” She frowned.

“I have an idea! I know what to write now! Thank you thank you thank you!” 

“Wait what? You’re welcome? What did I do?” Carmilla asked extremely confused.

“I’ll tell you all about it later! Got to go write! Thank you!! I’ll talk to you later!” And then the phone went dead. Carmilla looked at her phone, confused at what had just happened. But she couldn’t help but smile. This was the first time someone had called her, and not the other way around.


	12. Chapter 12

“The art of journalism?” Elizabeth read out loud as she looked up at Laura through her reading glasses. “It isn’t really an impressive headline miss Hollis.” The director said as she flipped through the pages. 

“Yes, I know that it’s not my best headline but I promise I will impress you when you read it.” Laura nervously said as she played with her clammy palms. Even though she might have stood up to the director once she knew it would not happen again. She was still afraid of her and respected her extremely and it defiantly did not help that she had kissed her daughter.   
The director started reading the first page and the blond looked at her intensely, trying to read every facial expression. However, you could tell that she was Carmillas mother by the fact that her expression didn’t move one single time, however she nodded here and there which kept Laura’s hopes up. 

“I must say it is a good start. However, it is 8 pages long. Will I find this report interesting throughout the whole way?” She asked with a raised eyebrow at the young journalist. 

“Oh, defiantly! I bring you the best of the best!” Laura said as she swung her arm. 

The director was quite for a minute as she flipped through the pages and she drank her coffee. Finally she looked up again at a very anxious Laura.

“Well?” Elizabeth asked.

“Well?…”

“Why are you still here? Don’t you have work to do?” The grey haired woman sneered.

“Yes, of course! I’ll get right to it!…But you haven’t really assigned me any work though. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do…” Laura said unsurely. The director looked up again from her paper and took off her glasses.

“Yes of course, go down to the reception and ask for Maria. She will help you find your way around.” She said simply as she waved her hand at her to get out of her office. Laura nodded her head quickly and left the director to read her paper.

As she got down to the reception, Natalie greeted her with a huge smile and congratulated her on the job. “Hey, I’m looking for Maria. Could you call her? Director Karnstein told me to meet up with her here.” Laura said after their little chit chat. 

“Yes, of course, give me a second.” Natalie said and proceeded to make a quick call.

Within minutes a tall blond woman stood in front of Laura and introduced herself as Maria. Laura’s fist thought was that she was almost as tall as Danny, if not taller. Which reminded her that she needed to meet up with her soon.

“Well miss Hollis, follow me and I will show you to your desk.” Maria said simply. But the tone in her voice was somewhat bitchy Laura thought.

Laura had expected to be shown around the office, however Maria seemed to have skipped all the essentials as the bathroom, lunch room and so forth and just brought her directly to her desk.

“Wow, my own desk! Isn’t that cool!” Laura exclaimed as she sat down on her office chair and did a little spin. Maria raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her before going through the file she had been carrying around. 

“Anyhow!” The blond woman said as she started looking through the file, ignoring Laura’s comment. “Here’s what you need to do today.” She said and handed Laura a big stock of papers.

“Wait, I don’t know how anything works here. Don’t you need to go through some rules or something? Or what my new email is or where to post the articles and so on?” Laura asked hurriedly and confused. Maria smiled an evil smile at her.

“Oh honey, no no. Everything is written on the papers I just gave you. Here at The Oracle we don’t have time to waste on people like you.”

“What do you mean by people like you?” She asked as she frowned at the taller woman.

“Well, people with no experience of course!” Maria answered with a big smile, however the tone of her voice did not hold any cheer.

“Oh… okay…” Laura answered hesitant.

“Good luck newbie.” Maria smirked and left Laura alone. 

Laura sighed and looked at the huge pile of papers in front of her. She had no idea of what she was doing and suddenly she felt that she was in way over her head.

 

“No, this will not go through miss Karnstein. We will not lower the price for this piece. It’s worth a fortune!” A man dressed in a business suit told the brunette sitting in front of him behind her desk.

“Well, then I am not interested. I appreciate real art, and while this is art, it is obviously not worth the price you have presented to me. I am not an imbecile, I know art, thats why we at the Karnstein Arts Gallery we only bring in the best.” Carmilla said as twirled her pen between her fingers. 

“Well then, the deal is off.” The man said briskly, clearly annoyed at the woman in front of him. 

“Alright Mr. Stone, if that is what you want then go ahead. I’m sure the other arts galleries will be thrilled to pay that price you just offered.” She answered sarcastically as the man started walking out of her office.

Mr. Stone stopped in his tracks aggressively ran his hand through his hair. Carmilla smirked, she knew he had him now.

“Okay, fine. I will go down 5% on the price.” He said as he turned around to look at her, only to see her looking uninterested as she went through her paper work.

“15% or the deal is off.” She answered, not even looking up at the slightly grey haired man.

“Are you insane?!” The man exclaimed. “That’s too much!”  

“Okay Mr. Stone, then you can take your business elsewhere.”  

“8%!”  

“15% and we have a deal.” She said simply as she looked up at him and leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs.

“10%!”

  “I asked for 15%.”

“Let’s meet at 13%!” Mr. Stone said in frustration which made Carmilla smirk. She would have been satisfied with 8% but it was so easy to negotiate with the sellers. Her mother had thought her a thing or two it seemed like. Carmilla stood up from her chair and reached out her hand.

“It’s a deal.” She said and shook his hand. After the papers were signed Carmilla was left alone in her office again, looking through some files on her computer when she started thinking about Laura and started smiling. She was wondering how she was doing on her first day, worried that her mother would have rejected her paper. She had barely heard from her since their phone call. They had texted a bit but Laura kept on saying that she was working on her paper so Carmilla decided to leave her alone to finish it, however she still had no idea what idea she had given her. But for her sake she hoped it was good enough to impress her mother. She heard her phone pling next to her and she saw she had a text from Laura.

“I think I’m in way over my head :(“ The text read, which Carmilla quickly replied. “Tough first day?”

“Yeah, they aren’t nice Carm! They are evil here! :(((“ Carmilla felt bad for Laura. She knew that the company was a very competitive environment and you had to look out for your own back.

Carmilla hesitated before sending her next text. “Well, why don’t you come over to my place after work and you can tell me all about it ;)?” Carmilla was never one for emojis, however Laura had started to complain that she sounded too serious and she never knew she she was teasing or being nice. So she had started sending emojis here and there, even though when pressing send she wanted to barf. 

A couple of minutes went by without an answer and Carmilla started to regret texting Laura that message. “Must be that freaking emoji…” Carmilla mumbled as she started looking through her papers again just before she heard another pling.

“Yeah sounds awesome!!! ;D” Carmilla chuckled at Laura’s text, but that didn’t change the fact that she hated emojis. 

 

It was around 2 o’clock and Laura had finally gone through all the instructions and she had finally set up her new work email and some other essentials before she started reading through what needed to be done for today. Suddenly she felt someone standing next to her which made her look up.

Elizabeth was looking down at her with her paper in her hand. Laura gulped.

“I read through your paper.” The older woman said simply. 

“Oh…okay. Did you like it?” Laura said with a timid smile on her face.

“No.” The director said simply and threw her 8 pages report on her desk. Laura felt her heart sink and she bit her lip.

“Oh, I’m sorry I will do better next time. I promise!” Laura said eagerly. 

“I hope you do for your own sake.” She answered simply as she turned her heel and left Laura alone. Laura felt her lip quiver but she then realised that she shouldn’t feel sad. She hadn’t gotten fired. She was going to show them that she was the best reporter they had ever seen. The short blond grabbed her file and started reading through what needed to be done, eager to prove herself. 

 

Downtown a couple of hours later Carmilla was on her way home and felt like even though it was monday, she had been able to fix most of the important shipments that needed to be done for the week. She had texted Laura and they had agreed to meet at her place in 30 minutes and she was in a rush to get home and change from her business suit. She heard her phone ring and she sighed when she saw it was her Mother calling.   “Hello Mother.” 

“Hi Carmilla, how was your day?” Elizabeth asked, not really sounding interested.

Carmilla rolled her eyes at her Mother. “It was fine Mother, was there a special reason why you called?”

“Well, I’ve talked to my therapist and he told me that I need to improve my relationship with you, which I agree. I don’t approve of this fall out we’ve had for the past two years. So, I thought calling you once in a while is a good start.” Elizabeth said. Carmilla was taken aback by this. Her mother had made no attempt before to fix their relationship after what happened two years ago and she was slightly touched by the act.

“Well, if you think that might help I’ll try my best.” She answered, trying not to sound too happy over the fact that her mother was trying. 

“I have something interesting to tell you actually.”   “Oh, really now?” Carmilla said slightly intrigued. 

“Yes, well it is work related but I thought talking about work is a start at least.” 

Carmilla couldn’t help but chuckle, her and her Mother were more alike then she liked to admit.

“So, I’ve hired this new employee, Laura Hollis. I know, I was as shocked as anyone else that I hired someone new and someone who has no experience actually.” Carmilla directly understood who she was talking about and she started to get nervous. If she was going to talk bad about Laura she didn’t know if she could bite her tongue, but she knew she had too to not to put Laura’s career on the line.

“Well, that was unexpected. How come you hired her? I mean you always want a long list of references and experience.” Carmilla continued, trying to get some information.

“Well, she has something special I must say. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. But she got nerve and I like that. Not a lot of youngsters like her have that passion and drive I’m afraid.”  “Yeah, well mostly people now a days think they can get anything just by a click of a button.” Carmilla said as she opened her front door.

“Hey sis, who you talking to? Is it Laauuurr-“ And before Will could finish his sentence, Carmilla had thrown her keys at him and made an aggressive hush sound.

“What? Don’t be so moody!” Will answered annoyed.

“It’s mother” Carmilla mouthed at him which made him drop his jaw. 

“Shit, I’m sorry!” He hushed back. Carmilla just waved her free hand at him in annoyance and went into her room. Elizabeth had apparently gone on talking about todays youth and she was happy she hadn’t missed any information about Laura.

“So, whats so special about her?” Carmilla asked when she finally got an opening. “Is she a good writer?” 

“I haven’t seen such a good writer and journalist since my young self actually. I was very impressed by her paper, of course I didn’t tell her that. I can’t spoon feed her on her first day.” Carmilla smiled with pride for Laura, however she was a bit annoyed that her mother had not given her good feedback, however somewhere deep down she understood her. She did it to make her push herself harder, it was not the technique she personally used for her employees but a lot of people actually used it.

“Well, I understand where you are coming from but shouldn’t you give this Laura?” Carmilla said unsurely, playing the game. “A bit more credit, I mean she did a good job and she should be entitled to know it, otherwise she might be going in a completely other direction how to write her articles which you might not like.” Carmilla said as she started taking off her suite, changing into something more appropriate. 

Elizabeth was quite for a moment before answering. “You know, I’ve never thought of it like that. I’ll bring her into my office tomorrow and tell her that she did a good job but she needs improvement in some areas.”  The brunette smiled that she had made her mother change her mind. “Well, thats good. Make sure you take good care of her.”  “Why do you care how I treat my employees?” Her Mother asked in confusion. Carmilla widened her eyes realising that this was in fact extremely out of character for her to care about a person she’d never met. But she was quickly came back on her feet again.

“Well, if she really has potential and is as good as you say, then you should make her the best. It would only benefit the company.” Carmilla said, trying to sound as normal as possible.

“Ah yes, you’re absolutely right. Well Darling, I have to go and make some phone calls.   
Thank you for your input. I see that I have raised you well.” Carmilla sighed and rolled her eyes at the last comment. “Yes mother you have, bye now. Thanks for calling.” 

The phone went dead and Carmilla smiled, everything seemed to be going good. 

 

Laura was standing in front of Carmillas door and she been standing there for a while. She didn’t really know what to expect or how to greet her. Was she going to hug her? Was she going to kiss her? Was it gonna be awkward? No, it couldn’t get awkward, could it? The phone call wasn’t awkward, but this is in person, maybe it will be different? Before Laura could psych herself up even more she rang the doorbell.

However, she wasn’t meet by Carmilla which she had originally though, there stood Will, looking as confused as she was.   “Oh right! You guys have a thing!” He burst out upon realising why Laura was standing in front of him. Laura felt her cheeks go red and she didn’t really know what to answer.

“Yeaaah…eum I don’t know? Hi Will.” She said awkwardly as she took the liberty to step in.

“Hey Laur, I’ll call Carmilla one sec. CARMILLA!” Laura jumped at his tone of voice changing so quickly.

“YEAH?” She heard Carmilla answer from somewhere in the apartment.

“Your date is here!” He said with a smirk as he nudged the tiny blond who just blushed even more.

“Will, I swear I will kill you!” Was heard as she stepped into the living room.

“I was just joking!…I think. Anyway, I was just about to go meet up with Kirch, do you guys want to join?” He asked as he looked at the two.

“Maybe later” Laura said before Carmilla had the chance to answer.

“Great, text us. We’re going for beer, you know where.” He said with a wink to Laura who suddenly felt even more uncomfortable. “Bye love birds!” He smirked as he closed the door behind him, leaving a very awkward Laura and Carmilla in the living room. 

“Sorry about that.” Carmilla said after a couple of seconds, feeling the tension in the air.

“Oh, no problem.” Laura said as she waved her hand. 

They both stood still for a couple of seconds not really knowing what to say or do.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” Carmilla asked, sounding a bit unsure.

“Sure!” She answered a bit too enthusiastic and as soon as Carmilla had turn to the kitchen Laura immediately slapped her head at how awkward she was behaving.

“Take a seat” The taller brunette said as she started to pour up the wine and Laura took of her jacket and sat down. Just then, William jumped up in her lap and started nuzzling her chest. Thank god, Laura though, a distraction.

Carmilla handed Laura her glass which she thanked her for and sat down next to her.

“So?” She asked as she looked at Laura who was focusing on the black cat.

“So…?” She repeated as she looked up at her.

“Well, how did your first day go?” She asked as she took a sip of her wine. Laura let out a long frustrated moan which made Carmilla chuckle and William jump off her lap. 

“Carm, it’s not funny. It went sooooo bad.” She said with a pout and Carmilla smiled at her with adoration at how cute she was being. 

“Come on cupcake, it can’t have gone that bad.” She said, trying to cheer her up.

“No, seriously. First, I had to hand in the paper to Elizabeth which was by far the scariest thing I have done! Then she told me to go to this Maria who was going to show me around. And guess what? She didn’t. She didn’t show me to the lunch room, nor the bathroom or nothing, just to my desk. I had to ask like five people for the bathroom which was really awkward because I really needed to go! Then she didn’t show me how anything worked so I sat for three hours trying to figure out the system and how to put up my own email and how the main site worked. Then your mother came back with my paper and said she didn’t like it. Which made me really sad. But then I decided I needed to get my things together and I finished everything I had to do for today so that’s good but they are all so mean and I didn’t even get a chance to eat today because I wasn’t informed about my lunch hours so now I’m hungry and yeah no. It was a bad day…” Laura finished her rant and drew in for air, not realising how fast she had been speaking. 

Carmillas eyes had gone wide from the speed of her words, however for some reason she had understood everything. “Cupcake, relax.” She said as she put her hand on her leg and started stroking it. “Isn’t most of it in your head?” She tried and smiled a reassuring smile at her.

“No, it’s not. How can it be? I mean Maria literally said “The Oracle don’t have time to waste on people like you” which she then explained was people with no experience. So no Carm, I don’t think it’s all in my head.” She said as she leaned back on the couch in defeat. Carmilla felt bad for Laura, she had done her best and she was nothing but kind, yet people chose to step all over her.

“Maybe you should just show them your front feet and show that you have what it takes?” Carmilla tried.

“Not on my first day Carm, I can’t do that. Maybe a couple months in, if I even last that long. God, I don’t know anymore.” She said defeated as she buried her head in her hands. 

“Hey, cupcake don’t say that. You got the job and you can’t give up now.” She said with a small smile as she sat closer to her and held her arm around her shoulder. “Plus, my mother called me after work and told me a thing or two.” She said with a smirk, which caught Laura’s attention and she looked up from her hands. 

“What did she say?” She asked suspiciously.

“Oh, nothing much. Just that this Laura Hollis had something special and she hasn’t seen such a good writer since her young self.” She said with a smirk, Laura frowned at her before giving her a little push on her shoulder.

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.” She said with a huff as she dragged her hands through her hair.

“No, I promise. I wouldn’t just make that up. I’ve learned my lesson about messing with your career, which I’m still extremely sorry for, but I’m telling the truth.” She said as Laura looked up at her again. 

“Really?” She asked with hope in her voice.

“Really.”

  “Oh, Carm that’s amazing! Thank you!” Laura smiled widely as she jumped into a hug Carmilla wasn’t ready for. Which made her freeze and widen her eyes for a split second before hugging her back. The brunette wasn’t used to hugging and had never liked it, but she could get used to this. 

“Oh, sorry…” Laura said after pulling away. “I didn’t mean to jump you, or I did but…yeah.” She said as she averted her eyes and started to scratch the back of her neck. 

“Cupcake, it’s okay.” She answered with a chuckle. Laura looked up at her again with her clear brown green eyes and Carmilla felt herself not being able to look away. She leaned in slowly and gave her a small kiss, which she didn’t respond to at first, until she kissed her back. Laura smiled into the kiss which made Carmilla smile too. Suddenly, she heard the blond stomach rumble and Laura pulled away giggling.

“Well, you mentioned not eating lunch. Want to get out of here and grab something to eat?” Carmilla asked as she looked at a slightly flustered Laura. 

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea.” Laura smiled at Carmilla and they stayed like that for a while just smiling at each other before Laura looked away and let out a small laugh.

“You have to stop doing that. We won’t make it out of your apartment if you continue.”  “Was that a sexual innuendo?” Carmilla said with a smirk which made Laura’s eyes widen and a bight pink blush appear all over her face. 

“No, no that’s not what I meant! Not that I don’t want too or like well it’s too soon or like you know it’s just-“   “Laura, I was joking.” She deadpanned. 

“Oh, yeah right of course!” Laura laughed nervously. 

“Besides, it takes a couple of dates before something like that happens right?” She said with a wink before she stood up. 

“Wait, is this a date?” Laura asked as titled her head.

“Well, Will did tell me that my date was at the door, didn’t he?” She said nonchalant as she took hold of Laura’s hand and helped her up.

“Yeah… I guess he did.” Laura answered with a timid smile on her lips.


	13. Chapter 13

They had decided on eating sushi just around the corner from the pub Oscars, in case they felt they wanted join up with Kirsch and Will later. Laura, who had never had sushi before, was extremely excited while Carmilla was just enjoying the company of the bubbly blond. 

“So you’ve never had sushi?” 

  “Nope. I’ve always wanted to try though, but it seems so exotic” Laura said as she sat down in front of the brunette.

“I actually didn’t start eating it until I started my business. I went to a lot of venues and they always served sushi, so I just started enjoying it I guess.” Carmilla said simply as she read through menu. On the other side of the table Laura was trying to figure out what everything meant. In her eyes, nothing made sense. California rolls? Salmon Gukan? She narrowed her eyes at the menu, trying to understand what everything meant, but even if there was a small text under the name explaining what was in the sushi it still didn’t make sense to her. 

“You doing alright there creampuff?” Laura looked up from her menu and saw Carmilla smirking at her as she raised an eyebrow at her in amusement. She must have seen her confused look on her face as she looked over the menu, and so did probably everyone else at the restaurant.

“No, no I’m fine…” Carmilla raised her eyebrow again at the blond. “Okaaaaay, no I don’t get it. It’s so…Japanese” She let out in frustration. 

“Laura, you do know it’s written in English right?” She smirked as she put down her menu.

“Don’t be mean, you know what I mean.”

Carmilla said with a chuckle as she tilted Laura’s menu so both of them could read it. “It’’s not so hard. I mean do you like avocado?”  

“Yeah…”

  “Crab?”

  “I guess…” Carmilla chuckled at the journalist in front of her, she seemed extremely confused and the way she wrinkled her nose was just too cute.

“Well, then I recommend that you take the California roll, I think you’ll like it.” Laura nodded at her and just then the waiter came up to them and Carmilla ordered for the both of them.

“I was wondering…” Laura said said as she leaned towards Carmilla. “I mean, I know what you work with and stuff but like…god how do I put it without sounding rude…”Laura asked mostly for herself as she tapped her chin.

“You can ask me almost anything, so go ahead. If I don’t want to answer then I’ll tell you.”

“Well, what I wanted to ask was well…so I might have looked into your company” Carmilla raised her eyebrow in interested. “And I mean, first of all, you’re only twenty-six years old and you’ve achieved something that awesome is beyond my understanding.”

  “Well, even though I hate to admit it I have a lot of my mother in me. If I want something I make it happen. Plus, most of the clients don’t know my age and I prefer it to stay that way. I frown a lot at work, so it looks like i have wrinkles and therefore older I guess” Carmilla answered with a shoulder shrug.

“Oh stop it, you don’t have wrinkles. You have the most beautiful features I’ve ever seen.” Laura answered back which made both women avert their eyes. Carmilla wasn’t used to compliments. She was always the one giving them but never getting anything back. It wasn’t like she disliked it per say, it was just foreign to her to have someone compliment her on her looks like Laura did. She would usually get the “You look sexy” or “You look hot”, but never beautiful and she felt a bit taken aback.

“Secondly” Laura continued, trying to save Carmilla the embarrassment, why she looked embarrassed was a mystery to her. “I mean, you’re the CEO. I guess what I’m trying to say without being rude…how come you live with Will? When you obviously make the money to have your own place that is.” Laura knew it was taboo to talk about money, but she was interested because most of the times the two siblings were just annoyed at each other, or that’s what she had understood from the situation. 

“Well…” Carmilla started before taking a long pause, carefully choosing her next words wisely. “Well, it is my place. I moved in a couple of years ago and then something happened, which I prefer not to go into detail. But I didn’t want to live alone so Will gladly moved in with me. I mean Will is becoming a successful lawyer, believe it or not. He might seem like a goofball but he is actually really smart, a real Karnstein. Anyway, I guess we just stayed with comfort. He also has the money to get his own place but we’ve always stuck together and yes, he drives me mad most of the time but it’s nice to have your family around. One day I guess that I’ll want my own place, but right now I am content with the living arrangements.” Carmilla said and Laura nodded her head. She was curious about the incident that made her want Will to move in with her, however she knew that Carmilla wasn’t ready to talk about it just yet, so she decided to bite her tongue. 

Laura took hold of Carmillas hand, and even though she had done that several times lately, the brunette always seemed taken aback by the gesture. “I’m glad he was there for you, plus it doesn’t surprise me that he’s on his way of becoming successful, I mean he was known around campus for being a genius.” Laura answered as she started to stroke Carmillas hand.

“Might I ask you something?” Carmilla said as she tilted her head.

“Sure!” 

“Well, do you miss your dad? I mean, I haven’t heard much about him.”

  “I miss him so much, I was actually homeschooled up till high school-“

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” Carmilla teased back which made Laura pinch her hand teasingly. 

“Well anyway, I spend a lot of time with him. Even though he could be annoying he’s still my dad, and after my moms death we became a lot closer. So yea, I miss him but we talk a lot actually and I’ve just taught him the art of texting, not that he understands it but it’s a start. He’s actually coming to visit me next month!” Laura said with a huge smile on her face. Carmilla smiled back at the girl in front of her, you could really see the love for her father and she was happy that she got to experience something she had never had.

Just as she was about to answer their food and drinks arrived. Carmilla noticed pretty quickly how Laura was struggling with eating with sticks and she couldn’t help but snicker. 

“Carm, stop laughing! It’s not funny!” She whined as the brunette continued snickering at her. 

“It is though. You look so confused and It’s not that hard actually.” She said simply as she took up a piece of her sushi with elegance. 

“Now you’re just showing off.” Laura answered back in defence.

“Well, I have to impress you somehow right?” Carmilla said with a wink which caused Laura to roll her eyes teasingly. 

 

After the meal when the check arrived Laura tried to be quick with her wallet, but Carmilla just put up her hand. “I got this cupcake.”

“But-“

  “No buts, I took you on a date. I’m paying.” She said as she took up her wallet and handed the waiter her credit card.

“Fine” Laura said grumpily as she crossed her arms. “But next time I’m paying!” 

“Oh” Carmilla answered with a smirk. “So you’re saying there will be a next time?” 

“Well- I mean yeah? I think it went good? Don’t you?” Laura said nervously as she started fiddling with her hands.   
 Carmilla took hold of her hands and which made Laura look at her. 

“Cupcake, I would gladly go on another date with you.” Laura felt butterflies in the stomach.

 

Outside, both women stood in silence, not really knowing what to do. It seemed like neither of them wanted to date to end just yet.

“So, wanna go meet up with Kirsch and Will?” Laura said after a while.

“Nah, I don’t really feel like hanging out with doofus and my brother really.” Carmilla said simply as she twirled her hair between her fingers. 

“Ah, understandable” Laura nodded.

“Well, we could go home to my place?” Carmilla said as she turned to look at Laura.

“Ooooor, we could go to my place? I mean you’ve never seen where I live” She said.

“Yea, true. Well, it’s gonna be interesting to see how Veronica Mars lives.” She said with a smirk.

 

Laura opened the door to her front door. “Welcome to my humble home!” Laura said as she made a grand gesture. Carmilla chuckled and shook her head at the tiny blond.

The place was extremely tidy, which Carmilla had not expected. While her room usually looked like a mess, Laura’s apartment was tidy and everything was neatly put in order. On the walls there were some pictures hung up, some of Laura and two redheads, which she was guessing were Perry and LaFonatine and another picture was hanging next to it which Carmilla guessed was a young Laura with her mother and father. She felt a tug in her heart looking at that picture.   
The rest of the walls were decorated with either framed newspaper articles which she guessed Laura had written herself and some paintings where it read “Believe in love” and other kind of inspirational quotes, which Carmilla had always hated and wanted to barf upon seeing them, but it didn’t surprise her that Laura had them on her walls.

“It’s cute.” She said after she took a closer look.  “Well, it’s not much but it’s home!” Laura said enthusiastically and she took off her jacket and her shoes which Carmilla mimicked. 

“Soooo, whatya wanna do?” She hadn’t really thought of what they could do when they actually had arrived at her place, and frankly there wasn’t much to do. She couldn’t offer Carmilla a glass of wine or anything else fancy because she simply didn’t have stuff like that. She had cookies, but she felt that that wouldn’t really impress Carmilla.

“We could watch something?” Carmilla said after a while, sensing that Laura was getting a bit awkward.

“Yea, sure! What kind of genres do you like?” Laura said as she put on the tv which directly connected to Netflix.

“Well, I’m not a fan of romantic movies, nor comedies or drama…I actually barely watch movies or tv-shows.” She said as she sat down next to Laura on the couch.

“Well, aren’t you a hard woman to please. I’m guessing you just read books instead.” She said as she started flipping through the movie list, trying to find something that would entertain them.

“Yea, well I do watch movies of course. But I’m not really up to date.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Hmm…even though you look like a young woman you remind me a it of an old lady.” Laura teased her.

“Yeah yeah, well some people prefer the art of literature over…well movies.” She said as she crunched her nose.

“Hey, that’s not true. Movies are artistic too actually! I mean yeah, some of them aren’t but most of them are!” Laura argued back.

“Wait, stop what was that?” Carmilla said as Laura flipped through the movies.

“Which one?” 

  “Go back.”

  “Oh that one? I haven’t seen it…it seems bad. It’s only gotten 3 stars.” Laura said as she narrowed her eyes.

“Sharknado?” Carmilla read out loud and let out a snort. “They actually made a movie about a tornado filled with sharks? And you mean to tell me that filmmaking is an art?” Carmilla said as she raised her eyebrow at Laura.

“Hey! I did say that some weren’t artistic. Plus, never judge a book by it’s cover!”

  “Or rating?” Carmilla questioned as she frowned. 

“Well, I wouldn’t be here if I judged you by how you acted in the beginning” Laura said as she smirked at Carmilla.

“True…” 

“Let’s watch it!” Laura said as she pressed play.

“Are you kidding me? Am I going to waste two hours of my life watching a giant tornado filled with sharks kill people?” She said as she crossed her arms at Laura.

“Aw come on. It could be fun, we don’t agree on our style of movies, well… you don’t have one. But let’s meet halfway and choose something we both might hate!” Laura said enthusiastically, even though Carmilla didn’t see anything enthusiastic about watching a movie they would both hate. 

“Okay, fine. Just because this is your apartment.” Carmilla said defeated as she snuggled up in the couch nest to Laura.

 

Half an hour later, after making some popcorn and snuggling up to each other, both girls were screaming at the TV and laughing at how stupid the movie was. 

“No, YOU IMBECILE! What are you doing?!” Carmilla yelled out as she grabbed some more popcorn. Laura let out a laugh at how invested Carmilla had gotten into the movie.

“Noooo! Watch out!” Laura screamed out. “God, they’re so stupid…”

“Well, what did you expect when you picked the movie.” Carmilla said as she continued to chew on her popcorn.

“True, but you’ve been yelling more at the TV than I have.” She smirked up at Carmilla, who huffed.

“Yea, but they are all idiots. Plus, it just doesn’t make sense to me, that guy literally dove into a shark and survived.”

  “Carmilla… the movie is literally about tornados filled with sharks. It’s not supposed to make sense.” Laura deadpanned. Which made both of them laugh.

Laura heard a ping from her phone.

“Hey Carm, could you pass me my phone?”

  “Sure” Carmilla reached over to grab Laura’s phone, however not trying to break their closeness. Carmilla tensed up when she saw the name on the screen. “It’s Danny.” She said bitterly. 

“Oh…” Laura said a bit hesitant before opening the text. 

“Hey Laur, could we maybe meet up sometime this week. I want to sort things out” Read the text.

Carmilla knew she shouldn’t be reading Laura’s text but she couldn’t help it, she felt jealous. It was obvious that the giant liked Laura and she didn’t like that. Plus, Xena had hurt Laura, which made her dislike her even more.

“Can you put it back?” Laura said after reading her text.

“Aren’t you going to answer?” Carmilla asked as she took Laura’s phone and put it on the table again.

“Nah, Danny can wait. I’m here with you now.” She said as she snuggled into Carmillas chest. 

Carmilla smiled at the blond laying in her arms. She felt happy, which she hadn’t done in a long time. She was filled with pride, knowing that in a sense Laura had chosen her over Danny. Suddenly Laura felt herself being pushed onto her back, Carmilla smirking over her.

“Carmilla, what are-“ And before she could answer Carmilla’s lips were on hers. 

“Cupcake, don’t talk so much.” Carmilla whispered as she hovered over the blonds lips. Laura looked into her brown eyes and felt herself blush. Carmilla smiled a small smile at her and Laura smiled back before Carmilla slowly leaned in and kissed her carefully. Laura closed her eyes and kissed her back, wrapping her arms around her back. They kissed slowly at first, exploring each others lips and Laura already felt herself go lightheaded. Their kiss turned more heated, Carmilla nibbling on Lauras bottom lips before their tongues met. By now, Laura was clawing Carmillas back lightly, which made her hiss into their kiss. Carmilla wanted more of Laura, yet she wanted to take things slow. But she couldn’t help to start grinding her body against the smaller girl underneath her. Her leg moved between Laura’s and before she knew it she was grinding her leg towards Laura’s heat. The blonds breath quickened as her nails dug into the older woman’s back which made Carmilla hiss with arousal. Her hands started to wander down Laura’s side, lightly gracing the side of her boob which made Laura moan into her mouth. The brunettes hand started to push up her shirt lightly and her hand found her hipbone which she started circling. Laura could feel electricity and arousal rush down to her core as Carmilla continued to grind herself against her. Carmilla wanted Laura, she wanted to hear her moan her name. She wanted to feel her body against her. She wanted more and Carmilla felt how she started to get wet. But she also knew that she didn’t want it to go this fast. It was their first date after all. 

They started to slow down again, going back to slowly and timidly kissing each other and after a while they both pulled away and looked at each other. They were both short of breath and Laura looked up at Carmilla like no one had ever done before. She wasn’t smiling, her look was serious, which Carmilla had never seen before, at least not like this. Laura took hold of Carmillas face gently and leaned up and gave her a long sweet kiss on her lips before pulling back, however still holding her face gently. Carmilla smiled down timidly at Laura, but Laura was still not smiling. She was looking at her like she was a piece of art, she was giving her a look of awe and Carmilla suddenly felt shy and averted her eyes. However, Laura pulled her face back to looking at her and smiled at her before kissing her nose which made Carmilla let out a chuckle. 

“Well” Laura said after a while. “That could have been worse.” Which made Carmilla raise her eyebrow at her. Just then Laura realised what she had said and panic flashed in her eyes.

“Oh my god! No, I didn’t mean it like that! It was nice, or like yeah no it was hot I mean you’re really pretty-“  

“Laura?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Shhh….”

“Okay…” 

Carmilla let out a small laugh as she dug her face in the nape of the blonds neck, inhaling her scent and Laura couldn’t help but giggle. 

Laura sat up a bit against the couch. “Come here” She said, motioning Carmilla to lie on her chest.

“Huh?” She frowned.

“Well duh, come lie on my chest.” 

Carmilla looked slightly confused, she had never been the one to be held, it was always her who held the other person, never the other way around. She timidly laid her head against Laura’s chest and felt her arms wrap around her.

“Like this?” Carmilla said a bit unsurely.

“Yeah” Laura let out a small laugh. “See, not so hard is it?” She teased as she kissed the top of her head.

Carmilla smiled against Laura’s chest. She could get used to this.

 

Carmilla woke up and rubbed her tired eyes as she sat up carefully and looked at the time. “Shit” She mumbled as she ran her hands through her messy dark hair. It was already 5 o’clock and she had to get home, shower and change before work. She looked down at Laura who was sleeping peacefully, her mouth slightly agape and a small snore escaping her lips. Carmilla smiled lovingly at her. She looks so cute and adorable and Carmilla leaned down and gently kissed her forehead. 

“Laura” She tried. No response.

“Laura?”

  “Mmmm” Laura mumbled back, not opening her eyes. 

“I have to go now.”  

“Noooo” Laura whined as she grabbed hold of Carmilla and dragged her back to her chest which made Carmilla chuckle.

“Laura don’t do this. I need to go okay? I’ll talk to you later.”  

“Just five more minutes.” Laura mumbled back, clearly still sleeping.   Carmilla looked down at the blond and smiled with adoration. She looked so peaceful and Carmilla felt at peace lying in her arms, which was something she wasn’t used to. She started kissing Laura’s cheek which made her mumble in her sleep as Laura wrapped her arms around Carmilla again, pulling her into her and cuddling her neck. 

“I guess five more minutes won’t hurt.” Carmilla whispered as she inhaled Laura’s scent and sighed contently. 

 

A couple of hours later Laura woke up by her alarm beeping and she quickly shut it off. She groaned as she sat up on the couch and smacked her dry lips in confusion as she realised she hadn’t put on her alarm on last night. Suddenly she also realised that Carmilla was gone and Laura frowned and took up her phone, where she saw a text from Carmilla.

“Hi cupcake, I tried waking you up but you only mumbled in your sleep. I put on the alarm for you so you would wake up for work. Also, I locked the door after I left and put the keys through the mailbox. I had a great time last night and I hope you have a wonderful day at work.”

Laura felt herself smiling more and more as she read the text.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I’m so slow on updating! University is crazy and I haven’t had time lately :/ Please comment and follow! And if you have any requests or ideas write me a message on my tumblr www.moodpill.tumblr.com


	14. Chapter 14

The day had gone on as usual, Laura had gotten to work just in time even though she was exhausted from last nights date. They had stayed up later than she had intended but even through her fatigue she couldn’t stop smiling. Laura sat down by her desk and started humming to herself as she flipped through her file.

“Excuse me?” Natalie said as she politely smiled at Laura who looked up at her.

“Natalie! Nice to see you.” Laura said kindly. 

“Yes, you too. I’m actually here to inform you that the director wants to see you in her office as of right now.” Natalie always sounded worried when she brought up the director. It wasn’t like it really shocked Laura, a lot of people were afraid of her and she understood why. However, seeing that Carmilla had informed her last night about the conversation she had had with her mother, she wasn’t too worried. 

“Thank you Natalie, tell her I’m on my way.

****

Laura knocked politely on the directors door before entering. 

“Ah, Miss Hollis. Glad to see that you made it on time.” The director nodded. “Take a seat.”

Laura walked over and took a seat in front of the Director. She was starting to feel much more comfortable around the woman now than she had the first time she met her, also probably because she knew what was about to come. 

“So, I want to discuss your article that you wrote.” She said as she took of her glasses.

“I promise I’ll do better next time!” Laura played along with her game.

“Well, that’s why I wanted to talk with you. You do need polishing up, however I was a bit too harsh on you yesterday. You wrote a good article.” She said. Even though those were the words Laura had expected to hear, the way the director said it just made it sound emotionless. As usual.

“Really? Wow, thank you Miss. Karnstein!” Laura said, acting surprised.

“Don’t thank me, I am just telling you the truth.” She said with a smirk on her lips. “I want to reward you.” She continued, which made Laura’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected it to go this far.

“Wait…you want to reward me?” She asked as she furrowed her brows at the grey-haired woman.

“Yes, I do. Usually when one is new at The Oracle you would be writing the stories no one really gives, excuse my French, a shit about really.” Which made Laura hold back a smile. “And as I saw yesterday, you do have talent. So I want to see how far this could go. I want you to write an article about the economic downfall of this city. Do you think you can handle that?” She said as she pointed her glasses at her. 

“Well, yes! Yes of course Miss Karnstein!” Laura said bewildered. She had to thank Carmilla later because whatever she had said had made her career jump a leap within a day. 

“That is all. You may leave. The information will be given to you from Maria.” She said nonchalantly as she put her glasses back on.

 

As soon as Laura had left the room she quickly took up her phone and dialled Carmilla’s number. 

“Well hello cupcake.” Carmilla’s smirk was heard over the phone. How she did that Laura would never know.

“Thank you, thank you thank you, thank you and a million more times thank you!” She said hurriedly.

“You’re welcome. But what did I do?” Carmilla asked confused. 

“I know you can’t talk cause you’re at work and so am I but I just HAVE to share the good news!” Laura said excited as she talked towards the elevator. 

“Go on.” Carmilla said with anticipation in her voice.

“You’re mom just pulled me into her office, not only did she say I wrote a good article BUT also that I will get to write bigger articles, like actually important ones!” She said with a huge smile on her face.

“Laura that’s amazing! Good job!” The brunette answered and Laura could hear that she was smiling. “And don’t thank me cupcake, you did the job, I just delivered the information.”   

“Well then, I’m thanking you for being the best postwoman ever.” She said with a playful smile on her lips. 

“It’s tough job but I try my best” Carmilla sarcastically answered which made both woman snicker. “Hey, do you maybe wanna grab lunch today?” Carmilla asked.

“I would love to, but I want to spend all my time at work writing my article” Laura said as she frowned. 

“Hey, no problem sundance. Maybe I’ll see you later?” Carmilla asked. This made Laura’s smile widen because of the fact that the brunette already wanted to meet her again.

“Maybe.” Laura said with a smirk which made the other woman snort. 

“Well, I’ll hear from you later creampuff.” 

“Yeah, you too!”  

“And Laura?” Carmilla said, her voice suddenly going serious.

“Yeah?” The blond asked a bit hesitant.

“Good luck.” 

*****

It had been a couple of days after her date with Carmilla and both of them had been extremely busy, however they had been talking on the phone every night for at least an hour. Not that the brunette said much, mostly listening to Laura’s gibberish, but the journalist couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the taller woman. Things at work had eased down, she was getting a hang of things and as Carmilla had predicted. Her paper was going really well and she was going to meet up with Carmilla later tonight.

Laura was sitting by her desk, her eyes glued to the screen as she typed away. She had predicted that the article should be done by the end of the day, if she gave it her all. Suddenly a familiar voice was heard. 

“Hey Laura, hows it going?” Laura turned around and saw Will standing with a big grin on his face. 

“Oh my god, hi Will!” Laura said as she got up and hugged him. “What are you doing here?” She asked as she rubbed his arm in a friendly manner. 

“I’m actually here to see mother, we’re going to lunch together.”

“How nice!” Laura smiled back as she sat down again on her chair.

“So, what are you working on?” He asked as he looked over her shoulder at the screen.

“I’m actually writing a paper about economic downfall of the city. Quite tragic actually.” She said as she frowned and scrolled through her text.

“I’m impressed that mothers already let you handle stuff like this.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty exciting. I think she secretly likes me.” She said as she smiled a goofy smile.

“Well, she shouldn’t like you too much. Carmilla wouldn’t like that.” Will smirked. Before Laura could answer she heard someone behind her.

“What wouldn’t Carmilla like?” The director said, extremely confused. Her eyes drifted to Laura and then Will. “Do you know my children?” She asked Laura as she raised a suspicious eyebrow at the blond. 

“I…eum…I”

“Yeah, her and Carmilla are actually-“ Before Will could finish Laura had driven her chair over his foot which made him yelp out in pain.

“Oh I’m sorry Will.” She said before she turned around and looked at him angrily, which caused him widen his eyes at his almost-mistake. “We’re friends!” Laura said, a bit too loudly, which caused Elizabeth to frown at the reporter. 

“I see…” She said suspiciously. “And how do you know Will?” She asked, looking at the two.

“We went to the same university, didn’t we Will?” Laura said with a exaggerated smile on her lips.

“Eum yeah…yeah we did actually! I forgot!” Will said, not at all sounding convincing. 

“Oh yes, I remember now. I saw that on your resume.” Elizabeth said after a while. “Did you meet Carmilla through Will?” She asked, her lips tightening slightly. 

“Exactly, I ran into Will and Kirsch at a bar and they introduced us.” 

“I see. Will, I’ll be right back I just need to go make a phone call.” She said sternly as she walked off. 

“That didn’t go so bad did it?” Laura asked Will who just shrugged his shoulders at her.

“I have no idea. I’m sorry, kinda forgot that it’s a risky topic because she’s her mother.”

“Well yeah, I don’t want to get Carmilla in trouble…” Laura said as she sighed.

****

Carmilla was sitting eating lunch by her desk. As she was typing she heard her phone ring and to her surprise she saw that it was her mother calling. Mother never called while she was working, nor did she call this often. Carmilla swallowed her food before answering.

“Hello?” She said unsurely.

“Hi Carmilla, this is mother.” Elizabeth said sternly.

“Yes, I know mother, i have caller id. I’m just confused why you are calling while we are both working.” She said as leaned back into her chair.

“Well, this is actually about work. Hence why I’m calling.” Elizabeth said. Carmilla had excepted her to continue her sentence, but when she stayed quite she sighed. 

“Yes, and?” 

“It’s about Laura Hollis.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, please check out my other Carmilla/Laura fic that I just started writing! I'm trying my best to write more!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I AM SO SORRYYYY! If I have any followers left I am so sorry that I left you guys firstly with a cliffhanger (the rudest thing a writer can do to their readers) and secondly for like half a year.   
> It's a bit shorter chapter, but I'll try to update sooner than half a year :(((( Sorry

Carmilla felt her body tense up when her mother uttered Lauras name.

“You’re awfully quite. So, I’m guessing you know of your mistake.” Her mother said coldly through the phone. 

“I-well-I” 

“Haven’t I taught you that stammering is not something we Karnstein do?” Elizabeth said impatiently.

“Yes, you have.” Carmilla answered, trying to stay calm. She just couldn’t put Laura’s career on risk again. 

“Well, so can you please explain to me why you pretended not to know my employee? When now I am aware that you’re friends? Plus, I did not know that you had friends like her. She seems too bubbly for your type.” 

Carmilla bit her tongue, trying to stay calm for Laura’s sake. “Well, neither did I. But since you know her you do know she’s not just all bubbles.”  

“I do agree, she does have some spunk in her. Now, what has gotten to my attention is first of all your lying, then for you to tell me to help her. Was she aware that you had talked to me before I had a meeting with her today?” Carmilla stayed quite for a while, trying to chose her words wisely.

“I know it was wrong of me to interfere but-“ Carmilla didn’t get to finish her sentence  .

“Yes, and I thought you would understand this. With you owning a business and all.” Elizabeth said, now clearly getting irritated. 

“I am sorry and I do know that it was wrong. Curiosity got the best of me and I know Laura. I wanted to help her, knowing how you treat your employees. You know that Laura has not only talent but passion for this and I just wanted to help a friend out.” There was silence on the other line for a couple of seconds and Carmilla could feel her blood go cold. If she got Laura fired because of her mistake the blond would probably never forgive or talk to her again. 

“I will let this slide on one condition Carmilla.” 

“And that is?”

  “Never, and I mean NEVER interfere with my work again. We are just starting to build up our relationship again and I am extremely disappointed that you took advantage of that.” Carmilla pressed her lips together, feeling even more ashamed now than before. She hated knowing that she had done wrong, but she was also one not to admit that.

  “I promise not to interfere with your work again mother.” Not even commenting on the rest that had been said. 

She heard her mother sigh on the other line and mumble “What am I going to do with you?” but she decided to pretend she didn’t hear that. 

“Well, that is all. I have to go now. I hope we can meet soon to discuss this manner over coffee in the near future.” Carmilla felt herself frown, she hadn’t seen her mother in god knows how long and the fact that her mother was suggesting to take a coffee with her was hard to grasp. Whatever Elizabeths therapist had said to her had really seem to work. 

“Yeah…sure. Some time next week?” Carmilla asked, trying to sound confident and unemotional as usual. 

“Sounds good. I’ll contact you when I know my schedule.” And with that said she hung up. Carmilla sat still for a couple of seconds with her phone still in her hand. This was not at all the phone call she had been expecting. Nor the outcome. She didn’t know how she felt about meeting mother next week, but the real question was how did she find out about her and Laura. 

—————

Laura let out a frustrated moan as dragged her hand through her hair. She was almost done with her article, just some fixes here and there and she would be done. Laura was a perfectionist and she was starting to feel how tired she was after all these days of working hard on her paper. She took a sip of her hot coco before she saw Natalie standing by her desk. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt your work, Miss Hollis.” She said politely as she adjusted her glasses. 

“Oh, it’s fine. Call me Laura.” She said with a smile on her face as she put the mug down. 

“Yes, Laura it is.” She said as politely as usual. “The director wants to meet with you again.” She was probably wondering by now why Laura was being sent up so many time to the office. 

Laura felt her eyes widen, wondering if this had anything to do about Will’s slip up earlier. “Eum…okay. Now?” The blond asked unsurely while Natalie nodded at her. “Okay then…eum yeah. Tell her I’m on my way.”  

Laura knocked on the directors door and heard a faint “Come in.” and as usual, Elizabeth was sitting behind her desk with a stock of papers in front of her. 

“Miss Hollis, no need to sit down. This will be quick.” She said as she looked up at her with cold eyes. 

Laura gulped.

“It has come to my attention, after my lunch with Will, that you and Carmilla are, quoting Will, best friends?” Laura frowned slightly at the term best friends.

“Well, yes. Friends, best friends, all the same.” She said, trying to sound nonchalant. 

“I want to ask you. Were you aware of the phone call I had with my daughter?” She said as she narrowed her eyes at her through her reading glasses.  

Laura started feeling her palms sweat up under the stare of her boss. “No, I am not aware of a phone call” Laura lied, but figuring that Will couldn’t have known.

The director stared her down for a couple of seconds, but Laura kept her cool, knowing that this was serious and she couldn’t goof it off. 

“Alright, well then we will leave it at that. However, I do not want your relationship with my children interfere with your position here, nor do I want you to believe that you will be getting any special treatments from me.” 

“Understandable, professional and personal lives should not be mixed, hence why I didn’t tell you about my friendship with Will and Carmilla.” The Director looked hesitant for a split second, probably not expecting Laura to take the situation this professionally. 

“I will say one thing personal though, and after that we leave this behind.” Which made Laura tilt her head slightly in confusion. “Be beware of Carmilla. She is a trouble maker and I don’t want any of my employees to end up in trouble. It wouldn’t look good for the paper, is that understood?” The blond was taken aback by what she had just told her. Laura didn’t really know how to react, she chose to nod quickly instead of saying something, fearing that her words would betray her. 

“You may leave now.” Elizabeth said, back to her cold self. 

Just as Laura was about to close the door behind her she heard the director behind her.

“Before you leave I have one question.” The woman said as she looked up at her from her files. 

“Yes, of course.” 

“The first time we met. When you barged into my office, does that have anything to do with Carmilla and our shared last name?” She asked sounding interested. 

“Yes, it has to do with everything actually” She answered. 

“That is all.” The director said coldly. But the smirk on her lips had not gone unnoticed by Laura.


End file.
